The Morning After
by ShanghaiLily
Summary: (The sequel to my one-shot 'Resolutions') What happens the morning after Jackie wakes up in Vegas with a nasty hangover and a wedding ring on her finger that she just can't manage to take off?
1. Morning Has Broken

**A/N - Hello all! I know I've been away for a while (toiling in the Veronica Mars fandom), but I just couldn't stay away, so I decided to drop in with a short multi-chapter fic, a companion piece/sequel to my one-shot, 'Resolutions'. I don't think it will be more than three-four chapters at most, but hopefully they will warm the hearts of zennies everywhere. I missed you guys!**

**PS - Rolling footloose and beta-free with this fic, so pardon any errors. Feel free to PM me if you see something crazy that you think I need to fix ASAP.**

* * *

**CHAPTER 1**

* * *

_Previously in 'Resolutions':_

_Jackie groaned and brought her hands to her head. She wasn't quite sure where the hell she was, but the scent of tequila and sex hung in the air, and that was never good._

_She rolled over and her feet knocked into a lump, hiding underneath the covers._

_"Shit!" she whispered harshly, as she looked around the room and tried to collect her bearings. This was her room, and that lump beside her was undoubtedly a mistake she'd made somewhere between the 5th shot of tequila and the near-empty bottle of champagne laying on its side on the floor._

_Jackie leaned over and picked it up. The label said 'Bollinger', and she gave a half-hearted smile. At least he sprang for the good stuff, it could be much worse. She tossed the bottle back onto the ground and scratched her head, hoping the details would magically appear in her brain if she could just get her circulation going._

_Nope._

_Maybe if she weren't so dehydrated things would come back to her?_

_Too hungover to leave bed just yet, she searched the nearby counter tops for any non-alcoholic liquid she could find, and spotted two full-looking glasses of water on the night table._

_Unfortunately for her, it was not the night table on her side of the bed. She whimpered, and gingerly reached across her apparent lover to snag a glass._

_As she brought the glass to her lips, her eye was distracted by something shiny and out of place._

_"Oh! My! God!" Jackie shrieked, waking the lump sleeping next to her with a start. She gawked at the wedding band currently residing on her left hand. "What the fuck is this?" she asked. "Is this 14 karat gold? Ew." She sneered while examining the ring with a scowl._

_Jackie didn't know what felt worse, knowing she married someone while completely blotto, or that she got married using a $50 yellow-gold cigar band ring. She shuddered at the tackiness of the ordinary which, in her mind, far exceeded the tackiness of the extraordinary – namely, her booze-addled, Vegas wedding._

_"Good morning, princess," the man under the covers said weakly before descending into a long moan. "Fucking tequila..."_

_"You can say that again," she mumbled to herself. Now wide awake from the sheer terror she was experiencing, she turned around and punched a random spot on her sheet-covered partner in stupidity. "Wake up, hubby!"_

_He slowly pulled the sheets from his face and frowned. "Spousal abuse? This soon?"_

_"Gah!" She exhaled her disgust and turned away from him. "How can you be so calm about this? You're not totally and completely horrified? This isn't a shock to you or do you do this all the time?"_

_He smiled and took her left hand, then brought it to his lips and kissed her ring. "I don't do this all the time, you freak. I'm not shocked because I wasn't as drunk as you were, so I remember last night. And I'm not horrified because...well, if you can't figure that out then you're dumber than you look." _

_Jackie was mad. Well, she wanted to be mad but she couldn't bring herself to be...not when he was looking at her like that. The corners of her mouth turned up slightly and she sighed her resignation._

* * *

_Holy shit, I'm married! I'm married?_

Jackie reached across her body over to pinch her own thigh. "Ow."

An amused grin spread across Hyde's face as he played with the fingers on her left hand. "No need to pinch yourself, baby, I really _was_ that good."

"As if." She rolled her eyes in his direction and flopped back onto the pillow with a groan.

She was married to Steven Hyde. LEGALLY MARRIED to Steven. What was once just a pipe dream, was now an uneasy reality that she was sure she didn't want and was positive she didn't remember. "This is crazy. We're both crazy. Naturally, I blame you."

Hyde kissed her ring finger again and slowly made his way up the inside of her arm, tickling her with his stubble along the way. If she weren't already in a bed, her knees would have given out by this point, loosened by the odd combination of shock and arousal. "Whats so crazy about it?

_Everything!_

She jerked her hand back and placed it in her lap. The least she could do was attempt to deal with this like a lady.

_Ha! A 'lady of the evening', maybe..._

Jackie tried to collect her thoughts, but it was nearly impossible over the snare drum thrumming inside of her head and his warm lips against her puckering skin. "I know you must, like, _adore_ getting drunk-married in Vegas...but this is just not what I do, Steven. This isn't me." She looked at him with desperation, beseeching him with her eyes to understand her feelings on the matter without having to actually explain them aloud. Not that she knew at all what those feelings were or what they meant.

"It's not?" He looked down at her wedding ring again and a smug expression crossed his face. "I've got a hunch you might be wrong about that one, doll."

Jackie shoved her hands under the covers to hide the ring. She didn't need the reminder of her recklessness staring her in the face, and the fact that he was getting so much enjoyment out of her discomfort was also irksome. "No. This is insane and you know it."

_You know what's also insane? Buying me a wide, yellow-gold wedding band. Do I look like I wear 14 karat gold? This is a sign. It just proves he doesn't know me well enough to remain my husband. Any guy who I would marry would know that I'm platinum, all the way._

"Actually...this might be the least insane thing I've done in about a year." Hyde mumbled just loud enough for her to hear. "Oh, and don't think I don't know what that little scowl means." He pointed lazily at her down-turned mouth. "You think I don't know what you like after you shoving it down my throat for two years? I bought that ring drunk, and _you_ were the one who picked it out."

"You're lying." His accusation of her having bad taste was almost more offensive to her than waking up married.

Hyde chuckled and shook his head. "I knew you'd say that, but in my defense, you thought it was hilarious and forced me into it. I think it was supposed to be an ironic purchase."

Jackie couldn't deny it sounded like something she'd find funny while under the influence. She almost smiled imagining how annoying they must have been to the sales clerk. "Guess that's only appropriate, considering the irony of the situation."

Ironic or not, she had to to get this marriage dissolved. After all of the days she'd spent dreaming and planning the perfect wedding throughout her her life, there was no way in hell she was going to let her only wedding go down like this. She couldn't even remember it, but she could reasonably guess that there were no doves released and she wasn't even wearing white!

_Why would this be my only wedding? It's not like I would actually stay with him...or like he'd actually stay with me. _

Deep down, she wasn't too sure either of those things were true, but based on their past experience, it was pretty damn likely. She had to just bite the bullet and end things before they got messy.

_Okay, messier._

Jackie swore to herself right then that she would walk down the aisle once more in her life, maybe even twice. Her mother was likely to get married at least three times before she turned 60, so why should Jackie have higher expectations for herself?

_Anymore, at least. I used to think it would be 'one and done', but that was before everything went to shit._

"We should get an annulment, Steven. What does that take in Vegas – an hour? There's got to be a drive-thru." Her goal was to appear casual, as if fielding this kind of crap didn't phase her at all. It obviously wasn't a big deal to him, since he'd made this exact mistake only a year and a half ago. "Oh who am I asking? Obviously, you're the _last _person who would know what it takes to get an annulment. Your only experience getting divorced was watching your fake wife get into the passenger's seat of her real husband's car on her way out of town."

_That was mean, even for me. But you know what? Screw it! It's not like I'm making it up, that actually did happen, so he can suck it!_

Jackie looked expectantly toward Hyde, half afraid of what his response might be. If he jumped at the chance for an annulment, her ego would probably shrivel up like a raisin, but if he fought her on it...what the hell did that mean? She wasn't sure she could deal with either of those scenarios without an anxiety attack kicking in.

Hyde's face was unreadable, as always. "Jackie, you can't get an annulment if you already consummated the marriage...and believe me, it was consummated. A lot."

_Does this mean he's fighting for us or just informing me of the legalities?_

She exhaled roughly and swallowed down the green feeling beginning to wind its way up her throat. There was no way she could last much longer in her current state. "Well, I don't remember, so as far as I'm concerned, it didn't happen."

"You don't remember?" He raised an incredulous eyebrow at her and looked as though he were gearing up for something big. "I'm pretty sure it was the most memorable fuck either of us has ever had, and judging by the color your cheeks are turning now, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say you probably agree."

She shook her head. "No."

"No, you don't remember, or no you don't agree?"

If she didn't know Steven better than she did, she'd almost accuse him of wavering in his confidence.

Jackie held her head high and lied through her teeth. "Both."

Hyde chuckled and relaxed his frame. "It can't be both, Jackie." He shook his head in reassurance to himself. "You either remember and you think it sucked, or you don't. And if you don't remember, then I kinda feel bad for you, 'cause then you have to live with the knowledge that you blanked-out the best sexual experience of your life." He stared her down, almost daring her to mention a third option.

_Of course I remember. A girl doesn't forget having five orgasms in one night, that's not an every day event. It's the stuff that came after it that's a bit of a blur._

She looked him in the eye. "Either way, I still want an annulment."

He grunted and jumped off of the bed in a fit of frustration, pacing the carpeted floor, completely buck naked and unashamed. Jackie tried to avert her eyes, but they were drawn to him like a magnet.

The lines of his body had changed over the past year, he'd gotten leaner and more muscular. She'd guess by his physique that he'd been living a healthier lifestyle, eating better and drinking less...maybe even going to the gym?

_Okay that was a stretch. He was probably just unloading more boxes at his store for the holiday rush._

She had no idea what he did in his spare time anymore, because they had little to do with one another outside of group events, and when they did mingle they kept their interaction to superficial conversation. Anything deeper and they'd start to argue, it was inevitable. Arguing about nothing was the only way to prevent them from arguing about something, and neither of them had the emotional bandwidth to handle that.

Hyde's voice was low and needy. She had only heard it like that once before, right before he told her he loved her for the first and only time. "You're not even going to give me a chance to win you back?"

_Say what?_

Jackie thought he had to be joking at first, since Steven had always insisted that phrases like 'give me a chance' and 'win you back' should be relegated only to crappy romantic-comedies and the wet dreams of 12 year old girls. When she examined his face though, the resolution in it knocked her off her axis.

"That's what this is?" Her brows bunched in confusion, and she tried to comprehend how her one night stand turned into a 50 year promise of fidelity to a man whom she no longer trusted.

"Well...what the hell do you think I'm doing here?" Hyde threw his arms up in a huff, making his abdominal muscles undulate with the action, and Jackie's gaze reluctantly followed them on their journey. She couldn't help herself, and his smirk made it known that he was instantly aware.

_Holy crap his body is looking good. Too bad it was too dark in the room and I was too drunk to appreciate it when it was hovering over me._

She closed her eyes and the image of Steven's strong neck flashed through her mind...the tendons pulling taut as his moment of euphoria hit and he exploded between her thighs...her name cascading from his lips in a gut-stirring moan.

_Woah._

Jackie felt herself flush pink at the memory and tried to ignore the painful throbbing beginning to stir at the apex of her groin. "What do I think you're doing here? Hmm...well, this is the stripper capital of the world, so there's that."

He glared at her and crossed his arms over his chest. "Seriously?"

_What are you doing, Jackie? He's being sincere for the first time in...ever? Ease up on the bitchiness._

Her eyelids fluttered apprehensively before speaking. "I don't know. Perhaps you missed your wife?"

Hyde continued to stare at her as if she'd lost her mind. "My wife is sitting on the bed in front of me!" He gestured almost violently in her direction and she jumped at the sudden movement. Cautiously, he knelt at her feet and rested both of his hands tenderly on her knees. She warmed to the contact immediately. "Sorry. I didn't mean to scare you or anything. I'm just..."

_Why is he getting so angry at me for not wanting to be married to him? Aren't I just giving him what he's always wanted – a lifetime of not being my husband? _

"I know." And Jackie did know. He was never good with words or expressing himself, but he was giving it his best effort, and for that alone, she would dial it back a notch. She took a deep, cleansing breath, which invited the stench of old booze and stale marijuana smoke to invade her senses.

_Big mistake._

Her stomach began to roll, but she forced herself to continue. "Steven...you know last night was...it was what it was...but I'm not your wife. Not really."

"The state of Nevada says otherwise, princess, so you'd better get used to it." Hyde's fingers drifted upwards and absently painted circles on her thighs.

"Why are you doing this? Are you trying to punish me? Or maybe...you think you're teaching me a cosmic lesson by giving me what I've always wanted in a way that proves it wasn't what I wanted after all?" Her lips pouted involuntarily, which was a new sensation for her. "I know how much you love allegories."

She wouldn't be surprised if in a year, the tale of their previous night were transposed into a story about monkeys and ended up on Hyde's bookshelf in between 'Watership Down' and 'Animal Farm'.

His palms slid off of her legs completely and she found herself surprised that she missed his touch. "You really think-?" He dropped his face into his hands and rubbed his features roughly. "Jesus Christ, I must really be the biggest asshole out there if you actually believe that's what I'm doing."

"You worked at it hard enough," she said matter-of-factly. It wasn't meant to be cold, it was just the truth.

"I know." Hyde let his back fall against the wall across from her and sat on the floor with his knees bent.

"I don't want to be married to you," Jackie said gently, knowing deep down that every word was a lie. "Last night was a big mistake."

Hyde absorbed the blow valiantly, but then scoffed. "Funny, you didn't seem too broken up about it while I was fucking you."

"Will you _please_ stop calling it that?" she barked at him, knowing he was just doing it to make her mad, which pissed her off even more because it was working.

_Why does he always know which buttons to press?_

He made his way slowly back toward her and rested his hands on her bare knees again, her skin betraying her with its swift reaction to his proximity. Every hair follicle vibrated at an inaudible frequency and piqued with anticipation of what might happen next.

_Judas!_

Hyde looked up at her, brushed a stray lock of hair out of her face and tucked it behind her ear. "I'll stop calling it that, when you stop calling last night a mistake."

It was a mistake, though. She was positive of that. It wasn't at all the way she was meant to be married. It was supposed to be magical, or at the very least, she wasn't supposed to be wasted out of her mind and wearing a hot pink mini-dress with gold fuck-me shoes and a borrowed veil. Even if she didn't get her heart's desire, she felt she deserved to be 'there' for it! Nobody should miss their own wedding.

Jackie couldnt help what she wanted. She wanted to be a real bride, with a minister who wasn't dressed like Tom Jones, for Mr. Forman to walk her down an aisle that wasn't decorated with sequins, and to have the kind of photos she could not only frame for her night table, but one day show their grandkids.

_Wait...now I'm having grandchildren with him? Snap out of it, Burkhart!_

"How could last night not be a mistake? I wanted you to marry me for _years_ and you wouldn't even entertain the idea. And now you just do it on a drunken whim, and I don't even remember it." Her voice broke on the last word and tears began to sting her eyes, and her nausea was returning tenfold.

_Don't cry. Don't cry. Don't cry!_

He perched next to her on the bed and she tensed up again, but managed to keep herself together. After all, she'd had a year of practice acting normal around him while she was silently falling apart..

Like a Pavlovian response, she gave him an out."You know what? Don't say anything, Steven, okay? I'm sorry I brought it up."

"Why are you sorry?" Hyde looked at her as if she'd gone crazy. "What are you even talking about, woman?"

Jackie shrugged twice before answering. "I know you – this is like, your least favorite subject in the entire world to discuss."

He was almost wild-eyed at the suggestion that he didn't want to confront this topic head-on. Even behind the shades, it was apparent. "We got married last night, and you think I don't want to talk about it?"

She looked at her feet to avoid his intense focus. "You didn't last time it happened."

His hands went to his head again and he exhaled long and hard. "Jesus, Jackie. If you want to talk about it, let's talk about it, okay? I'm not that guy anymore. Just forget about last time, will you?"

_What? _

Irrational anger welled inside of her chest and she shook her head.

_He wants to talk now? Now, when I've finally gotten my life back on track? Now, that the wounds of my heart have finally scabbed over to protect it? What good will talking about it do me now? _

Why didn't he want to talk_ then_? She would have done anything he'd wanted her to just to get him to sit down with her for a few minutes.

"I can't." She looked upon him coldly, and was actually able to catch the moment when her inner monologue finally made itself know to him, and she watched with an odd satisfaction as he recoiled.

Hyde pulled his glasses from is face and tossed them carelessly onto the ground, then steeled his gaze. "What do I have to do to get you to believe I've changed?"

Jackie held his eye contact and pondered her answer, but as she opened her mouth to respond, a rush of queasiness filled her throat. "I'm sorry, but I think I'm going to be sick." She haphazardly wrapped the rumpled sheet around her naked body, nearly tripping over the end of it as she ran toward the bathroom.

* * *

She shut the door behind her with a bang, and barely made it to the toilet, when the entire contents of her stomach came rocketing out of her body in protest. It was like her stomach knew something that her brain didn't.

_What the hell did I eat?_

She looked down at the mess she's created and realized that she hadn't eaten a thing. The entire haul was clear liquid and reeked of tequila.

_Gross. This must be what my mom feels like every Sunday morning._

An urgent knock sounded on the outside of the bathroom door, startling her from her thoughts. "Jackie, are you okay?"

_Is that a fucking joke? No. Nothing about me is okay right now in any way, shape or form._

Tears pricked her eyes as her reality came crashing down around her. She was on the floor of a Vegas bathroom, tossing her cookies into a toilet bowl, while her ex-boyfriend/new husband stood impatiently on the other side of the door, waiting for her to get sober enough to have 'the talk'. She would have laughed at herself if she'd at all had the energy.

Jackie pulled off a few squares of toilet paper and blew her nose. "I'm fine, Steven, just leave me alone. Please."

The room began to spin and she could feel the sick pressure building underneath her esophagus again.

_Not again..._

"Doll?"

Jackie latched her arm onto the side of the sink cabinet for support and heaved into the bowl.

The door swung open, revealing a worried-looking, and still very naked, Hyde. No guy had ever seen her throw up before, not even her own father. The housekeepers and nannies used to be the ones who took care of her when she was young, and when she got older, she had no choice but to do it herself. The whole morning was mortifying, and she cursed herself for bringing that first KIR Royale he bought her to her lips.

_Jackie Burkhart...meet Rock Bottom. Rock Bottom...Miss Jackie Burkhart. _

When she finally noticed his presence, she gasped. "What are you doing in here? I said I was fine!" Before she had a chance to truly register the sight before her, she launched into a staccato of painful dry heaves.

"Yeah, you look real fine." Hyde rushed behind her, dropped to his knees and wrapped one arm under her breasts to prop her up, while using his free hand to twist her hair loosely around his fist. "I've got you. Just lean over and get it all out. You'll feel better afterward," he whispered sweetly into her hair. "Man, I should've known not to let you be in charge of the tequila bottle last night. Fucking lightweight. What the hell was I thinking?"

"I think it's safe to say you weren't." A puff of laughter escaped her lips, followed by a fresh round of vomiting. When she was sure she'd gotten it all out of her system, she closed her eyes and leaned back into his chest. "You must think I'm the most disgusting girl you've ever met."

_I'll bet this puking scene even ruined jerking off for him today._

"You really think this is the most disgusting thing I've ever seen?" His eyes danced with amusement. "This isn't even the most disgusting thing I've seen this weekend."

"Really?"

"Come on. You even barf cute, Jackie."

Jackie laughed weakly and burrowed into his chest. She knew he was lying to make her feel better, but she was too tired to be embarrassed about it anymore. She sank into his arms and waited helplessly for the darkness to close in around her. "Thank you."

Hyde grinned as he pulled down a hand towel and wiped her mouth. "You don't have to thank me, Jackie. It's kind of my job now."

_I had a job offer once, and then I let it fuck my whole life up._

"You're okay, doll, I've got you. Just sleep it off." Hyde's lips pressed firmly against the side of Jackie's head and she felt almost like the teenager she used to be, only more world-weary. If she were really honest with herself though, she was always world-weary, it just took being with Hyde to make her strong enough to shine a light on it. Before that, she'd been content to keep up her illusions, and had done such a wonderful job of it that she'd sometimes even believed them herself.

"I've got you..." His words washed over her like a balm as he gathered her closer in his arms. "I've got you, princess...just relax..."

As the real world slipped from her sight, the last thing she could remember was hoping Hyde would be there when she woke up. Even half in the bag and fully hung-over, she knew it was the dumbest thing in the universe she should ever want.

_Like that's ever stopped me before..._

* * *

**A/N 2 - If you're a Veronica Mars fan, I would love it if you checked out my fics there - 'Follow the MacGuffin' and the WIP sequel to it called 'Red Herrings'. I'll probably alternate posting between this and 'Red Herrings', so don't expect my usual two-day update. Those of you who know me, know I won't take too long, though, especially if I know there are lots of people waiting for it (hint hint).**

**I'd love to hear what you all think, so if you have the time and the energy to review, it would be very much appreciated! I try to respond to all of them when I can. Thanks for reading :)**

**A/N 3 - for those of you who are/were reading Operation: Rebound, I'm actually rewriting the entire fic from beginning to end. I'm about 1/3 of the way done, so if you notice a slightly different style in the chapters after that, now you know why.**


	2. Hard-Headed Woman

**A/N - So, I fully meant for this thing to be four chapters max, but now it may end up being closer to ten. The muse has taken over the keyboard. I'm guessing the fic will turn out to be a similar length as 'Operation: Rebound', and probably not too different tone (so if you liked that one, you're in luck!).**

**Just wanted to thank everybody for the warm welcome 'home', and for leaving such lovely reviews. I'm truly touched :)**

* * *

**CHAPTER 2 **

Jackie's head throbbed uncomfortably, and her hands instinctively pressed the sides of her skull hard to relieve some of the pressure. She whimpered slightly and flipped herself over, only to find she was not alone.

_He stayed._

The fact that this made her happy put a frown on her face. The odd combination of being irritated and aroused by him at the same time was strangely not a foreign concept for her. Or him. It was kind of their thing.

When they were dating and things were good, they were untouchable. He could be sweet and open with her when he was feeling secure enough, and as always, she repaid his risk by dropping her facade and letting him see the real her. It was a delicate balance, but when it worked, it was magic.

When things were bad though, they were a living hell. He'd use every confidence about her insecurities that she placed in him and throw them all in her face, often in public and all at the same time. In turn, she never hesitated to needle the tiny hairline fractures that were barely visible to anybody but her, knowing full well that if she pushed at one of them hard enough he might very well crack in half.

And then there were all of those times in between, that she liked to refer to as purgatory. For two people who ran so hot and cold, things could never be neutral between them. Instead, they were erratic, sputtering like a dual tap faucet in the Wintertime, intermittently burning and freezing whatever dared to come close, never achieving any measure of comfortable warmth.

So, finding herself both moved and aggravated by his continued presence was a little bit like coming home.

Hyde, who was still asleep in the bed next to her, breathed heavily as her gaze drifted down his nude body, covered only partially by a thin, white sheet.

_And he's still naked, apparently. _

Jackie quickly checked her left hand for hard evidence of the night before, and as the light reflected off of the shiny, yellow band, an overwhelming sense of relief flooded her body.

_You're supposed to be annoyed, not relieved. Stop thinking with your lady-parts. This is about the biggest disaster that could have happened this weekend._

The pounding in her head grew louder and she cringed as its vibrations echoed fiercely throughout her body. Though she felt leagues better than earlier, her mouth was like the Sahara and her bones ached from hunger and dehydration.

_I hope to God I don't look as rough as I feel. _

She knew she had to. Jackie pressed her pillow over her head and tried to drown out the drumming, until she suddenly realized the noise wasn't emanating from her head after all, it was coming from the hotel room door.

Cursing under her breath, she tumbled out of bed with a groan and landed with a thud onto the floor, just missing an overturned champagne bottle, then crept on her hands and knees to the front door and pulled herself up by the handle.

_What part of 'do not disturb' don't these maids get? Maybe I should have turned the sign to the Spanish side?_

She had a moment of panic about being nude, but then realized that (unlike Hyde), she wasn't naked anymore, she was wearing a faded band t-shirt that hadn't belonged to her in over a year.

_What? Did he seriously bring this with him? It can't be the same one._

She looked at the bottom right-side hem and noticed a telltale smudge of pink nail polish that had always failed to come off in the wash.

_This isn't a copy, this was mine. Why would he bring it? How did he even know I'd...did he plan this whole thing?_

Anger burned hotly in her chest as she drew the only conclusion that seemed rational.

_That arrogant son-of-a-bitch!_

Jackie thought it ironic that Steven listened to Led Zeppelin when he got high, because at that moment, the shirt felt like a weighted vest, dragging her lower toward the ground. There was nothing she craved more right then, than to tear the fabric anchor from her skin. Just as she was about to turn around and stalk back to the bed to give him a piece of her mind, the door rumbled again, this time more urgently.

"Uno momento!" she hissed, as her hand reached out and leaned on the metal lever, letting a sliver of bright light in from the hallway through the small opening she'd created.

An aggressively perky blonde with her hands buried firmly in her hips stood on the other side of the grain, her lips drawn into an irritable purse, and continued knocking on the door long after Jackie had answered.

"If you want to live to see your wedding, you will stop that racket immediately," Jackie warned, as she squinted from the intense glittering of the hallway sconces.

"Jackie!" Caroline called out in a protracted whine. "What happened to you last night?" She looked angry but was obviously too intimidated by her maid-of-honor to take the final leap toward indignation.

_That an excellent question!_

Jackie leaned against the jam, mindful not to open the door too far in a weak bid to prevent the bride from discovering her overnight guest. "Shouldn't I be the one asking you that?"

If there was one thing Jackie learned from her many years of suffering through various, endless sporting events in Wisconsin, it was that a good offense is almost always a great defense. Not that she gave two shits about either where this batshit loony was concerned. She's agreed to be her maid-of-honor as a favor to Fez, because unbelievably, most women found his love a little too territorial and paranoid for their tastes.

Caroline's aquamarine eyes clouded with confusion as she tried to recount the details of their drunken hen night. At the same time though, they amazingly also managed to take on a psychotic edge. "You...what?"

_I'm going to need to grab a chair if she takes any longer to process basic English._

"You left me there, Caroline. One minute we were all there dancing together to Donna Summer, and the next, I'd gone to get a drink at the bar, and the rest of you ladies had run off into the night." Jackie sighed heavily, and pouted out her bottom lip for effect. "I looked everywhere for you. How could you just leave me like that?"

The white's of her unstable not!friend's eyes grew with embarrassment, and she quickly cupped her heart with her palm. "Oh my God, Jackie! I'm so sorry!"

_It's almost not even a challenge anymore with her. I wonder what's on T.V?_

"Shhh!" Jackie's eyes closed tightly in pain, but she played off the expression as graciousness. "Don't be silly, it was your bachelorette party, not mine. You shouldn't have to spend your evening keeping tabs on me. You're the girl who's getting married today..."

_...and I'm the girl who got married last night. _

Caroline squealed and tried the grab the hand Jackie was gripping the edge of the door with. "I can't believe I'm really getting married today! Can you believe it?"

_And they say I'm loud._

Jackie grimaced, and faintly wondered whether a human voice had the power to shatter brain cells. "Nope. I really, really can not. I can't believe it at all, actually."

"I'm too hopped up to just do nothing right now. Let me in your room and we can have girl talk while we order room service." She tried to push the door open further, but Jackie's hand wouldn't budge. "I want pancakes!"

Jackie looked derisively up and down Caroline's figure. "You might want to rethink that choice. Anyway, I haven't even brushed my teeth yet, so how about you vamoose and we can meet up in an hour after I've showered and I'm feeling a little more human?"

"Can't you just shower while I'm hanging out on your bed?" She scrunched her face up and tilted her head to the side in thought.

_Pretty sure Steven might object to that. Then again...men are such pigs, he'd probably get off on it. Maybe I should just tell her the truth, or at least a version of the truth that won't humiliate me to my core?_

Jackie leaned her head further out of the crack in the door. "I'm kind of...not alone in here." She gave her not!friend a pointed look and hoped she wasn't too flighty to catch her drift.

Caroline's eyes squinted with misunderstanding. "You have a friend in there? Is it Donna? Fez promised me that jealous bitch wasn't going to come! Whatever. I'm sure we'll all get along fine, Jackie, just let me in already." She tried to push the door open once more.

Jackie applied the entirety of her slight body weight against the back of the door, trying to shut it to no avail. Caroline had several inches on her and at least 20 lbs. "Not _that_ kind of a friend. Not a _girl_friend..."

The bride settled into a gormless stare until understanding finally hit like a lightening bolt...or so Jackie assumed. "Oh! It's not Fez in there, is it?"

"What?" Jackie was floored and looked around the hallway in a daze. "No. Are you serious? Of course not! If it were Fez, why would I te- -?" Her slowed reaction time due to the hangover didn't seem to help calm down her accuser. In fact, it only served to make it appear as though she were coming up with answers on the spot.

"Oh, like you haven't been totally in love with him for years! Fez!" Caroline yelled past her through the space in the door. "Fezzie? Are you in there?"

"No! No, he's not!" Jackie tried to hold the unhinged bride off, but with her abnormal strength dulled by her rough morning, Caroline easily pushed past her into the room. "Caroline, stop it. He's not in here, you freakshow! Calm down!"

The golden-tressed dervish whirled around in a circle to gain her orientation, before flinging the closet doors open one-by-one, in a huff to locate her beloved.

_BANG!_

"Fezzie?"

_BANG! BANG! BANG!_

Jackie ran a beleaguered hand through her knotted curls and followed helplessly behind Crazy Caroline as the other woman checked the back of each dresser, then the inside of the shower stall, and finally behind all of the curtains in the room, carelessly letting cruel streams of sunlight past the thick, red damask in the process. "What the fuck? He's not here, you lunatic! I'm not sleeping with your fiance!"

Just as Caroline had just about given up checking everywhere, she noticed the man-shaped lump hiding under the top sheet in the center of the bed.

_Of course the bed is the last place she checks, genius that she is._

With quivering fingers, Caroline approached the sheet and slowly peeled it back, only to reveal someone completely unexpected. "Hyde?"

Hyde casually crossed his arms behind his head and laid there naked for all to see, then leaned to the side to make eye-contact with Jackie. "I hadn't counted on a threesome doll, but if your friend wants to watch, I could be down with that."

Her ex winked at her, and she felt something in her stomach stir, that, for the first time that morning, was decidedly not nausea.

Caroline gasped and tossed the sheet back over Hyde's uncovered hips. "Oops."

"Don't take it personally, baby. I'm just not that into blondes." He smirked at Jackie from over the bride's shoulder and licked his lips.

_Why is this turning me on so much? He's turned me into as big of a perv as he is now. Great._

"I'm...I'm..." Caroline turned around to face her fiance's best friend and started maniacally laughing. "Oh my God. I am such a kook before I've had my morning coffee! You know how it is, right? Right?"

Jackie was frozen with fear. "Uh-huh."

"I just assumed...you know, because my Fezzie is the hottest guy any of us has seen up close, that_ he_ would obviously have been the one you threw yourself at, but clearly..." She looked at Hyde with a measure of pity. "...we have slightly different taste in men."

Jackie went from frightened to frigid in five seconds flat. "The one who I 'threw myself at'? I'm sorry, but have we met? Do I _look _like I need to throw myself at guys in order to get laid?"

Now it was Caroline's turn to be scared, and she backed up slowly toward the door, with arms outstretched as if holding off a charging steer. "I didn't mean it like that, Jackie. Honest! You're the prettiest girl in our whole town, everybody knows that!"

Jackie advanced on Caroline until the waif's back was literally and figuratively up against the cold, hard door. "Wrong. I'm the prettiest girl in _every _town, and if I wanted your boyfriend, I would have just taken him. I'm nobody's side-action, I'm the main event."

"I'm so sorry. I'm really sorry!" She plead for mercy. "Please forgive me? You're my maid-of-honor, you kind of have to..." She tittered nervously.

"Caroline, this is like the tenth time this week, and it's getting a tad boring for me, but...fine." Jackie was too exhausted to enjoy the act of tormenting her as much as she usually would have, so she just waved the nut job away with a limp wrist. "Go on."

Caroline smiled and batted her manic eyes adoringly. "You're such a good friend, Jackie. I can't trust those other bitches around Fez, but I know now that I can truly trust you."

"I'm touched." Jackie swung open the door and gestured for Caroline to leave. "Truly."

As Caroline walked past her with her head hung low in humiliation, she clamped down on her arm. "You won't tell Fez, right? He doesn't like it when I do stuff like this to people he actually knows. Waitresses and bank clerks are okay, though."

Jackie looked over her shoulder at Hyde, who was practically staring a hole in her back to avoid breaking down in laughter. "If you can keep a secret, I can keep a secret," she said, indicating her bed-mate.

"I think I can do that."

Jackie nodded. "Then we're square."

Caroline saluted Jackie and skipped merrily down the hallways as if the awkward scene had never occurred. "I can't believe it's my wedding day!" she shrieked to nobody in particular as she turned the corner.

_Yeah, technically it's mine, too. Yipee._

Jackie shut the door with her back and then slid halfway down it, before she caught herself on the handle. "Ow."

"I'm not gonna lie, Jackie. That -" Hyde twirled a hand in the air, to indicate the scene he'd just witnessed. "Was hot. The way you manipulated that poor, certifiably insane girl was pure poetry."

"A Haiku?" she asked dully, with a hidden twinkle.

He shook his head. "More like an epic, like fucking Odysseus."

A smirked crept its way across her lips and she pushed herself off the door. "I know that."

She could feel Hyde's eyes following her hungrily as she passed him on her way to the bathroom.

* * *

Jackie grabbed her toothbrush from the counter and got to work. An evening of drinking, followed by a morning of puking, had left her mouth a toxic waste dump.

_And who the hell knows what I put my mouth on in between the booze and the vomit? Okay fine, I obviously know._

She spread the minty balm around her mouth in tiny circles, taking care to avert her eyes from the monstrosity that she had no doubt would be facing her in the mirror.

Jackie turned on the tap and leaned over to rinse her mouth out, and by the time she looked up, she wasn't alone anymore. Hyde was standing immediately behind her, wearing a pair of black, cotton boxers and rubbing at his eyes in a childlike way that she couldn't help but find endearing.

"Hey beautiful." He reached over and grabbed the freshly-rinsed toothbrush out of her hand, then started using it on himself.

Jackie gawked. "Are you kidding me with this?"

His face scrunched up in annoyance. "First of all, we're hitched now, so this thing is 50% mine."

"It's a piece of plastic!"

"Yeah, and half of it's mine." He smirked and continued brushing.

"So you're saying this 'thing' that is now contaminated by your dirty mouth, is going on our lists of assets for the annulment papers?" she asked, then held her hand up to hold him off. "Just want to make sure we're on the same page. You have more real world knowledge with this kind of thing than I do, so I defer to your vast experience."

_Uh-oh._

The hairs on the back of her neck stood as straight as a porcupine's. She knew that look he was giving her, he used to give it to her all the time whenever she'd bested him with her sharp tongue. There weren't too many people who could burn Hyde, but on occasion, she was one of the few. If history had taught her anything, it was that she was about five minutes away from having the life screwed out of her.

Heat pooled like lava between her legs and her pulse began to quicken.

_Must. Leave. Now._

She eyed the bathroom door with vigor.

Even with a mouth full of toothpaste, Hyde could barely contain his mirth. "If this mouth is dirty, it's mainly just from licking your - -"

"Just take the stupid toothbrush." She threw a damp towel at his face and stalked out of the room.

Moments later, Hyde emerged, sporting an enormous morning hard-on.

_Oh holy hell. How am I supposed to look at anything else now? It's worse than being trapped with a person housing a giant mole on their chin or a missing limb._

A grin swept his face. "Something reminding you of last night, princess?"

She shook her head and backed away from him until her heels hit the closet door. "No."

Like the predator they both knew he could sometimes be, he inched toward her slowly, daring her to leave with his gaze. "I think you remember all of the _high points_."

Jackie clenched her jaw and shook her head more violently this time, nearly making herself dizzy. "You wish."

His knees knocked the tops of her thighs and he moved his mouth next to the side of her face, barely grazing the cup of her ear, before whispering into it. "You always were a lousy liar."

A shiver rand down her spine and her breathing became shallow. She wondered how he could manage to still have this kind of effect on her, so many years later with everything bad that had happened between them. "I'm an excellent liar. Everybody says so."

"You're excellent at a lot of things, but sorry to break it to you, doll, lying ain't one of them." Hyde's erection pressed into her stomach and her breath hitched. "Not to me, at least. I can always tell when you're spouting your bullshit. You get this little twitch in your lip." He ran his finger lightly over her plump bottom lip.

_Did my lip twitch that night in Chicago?_

Jackie remained stoic. She was afraid to move, petrified to turn her head and see the desire that was in his eyes, mainly because she knew if she could see his, then he'd definitely be able to see hers, too. "Then why did you believe I'd had sex with Michael when I told you I didn't? If you're so great at deciphering when I'm lying and when I'm telling the truth, why couldn't you tell back then?"

_Where the hell did that come from?_

She finally looked at him, stared with determination into his uncovered eyes, until he flinched and averted his gaze. It was his turn to feel vulnerable now. "I guess I just believed what I wanted to believe."

"Why would you _want_ to believe something so horrible?" Jackie bit on her bottom lip to keep it from quivering. "Why did you choose to think that I'd cheated on you, when all I'd ever wanted was - -"

Hyde pinned her body against the wall and she held her breath, waiting for the oncoming assault. His firmness pressed further into her belly, and he almost imperceptibly rocked it against her.

She reminded herself that this wasn't supposed to feel any good. He didn't deserve to make her feel good, and she sure as hell wasn't going to return the favor.

Closing his eyes, he pressed his forehead into hers, as if in meditation. "Maybe, I just wanted to rip off the band-aid?"

"I'm the band-aid?" she asked, incredulous.

He chuckled self-consciously and exhaled raggedly against her cheek. "Nah. You were the reason I needed the band-aid in the first place."

"Why?" she managed to squeak out. "Did I do something to hurt you?"

_Why am I afraid of his answer when it's the one thing I've been asking myself for the last 18 months?_

"Not yet." He shrugged and continued to rhythmically press into her. She could feel the air being squeezed from her lungs. "Come on, we both knew you were gonna wise up and figure out what a total bum I was at some point, so I figured why stick around for it, why wait for the axe to drop?"

_A preemptive strike?_

Her mouth fell open in shock. "I wouldn't – I never thought you were - -"

Hyde nodded against her face. "Yeah. I know that now. It only took me a year, but I got there."

She swallowed thickly and cleared her throat. "What finally made you realize?

"That look on your face when Sam first walked into the house, right before you ran off." He closed his eyes in shame.

_Ah yes...fun times._

Jackie tried to shake the memory of that moment from her head. It still was the very worst moment of her life. She'd been abandoned before by people she loved, but never by anybody whom she knew loved her back. "Why didn't you go after me? You didn't even try to talk to me about it, you just tossed me aside like an old pair of boots."

He released her from his quasi-embrace and rolled back onto the closet door next to her. "The first time with the nurse, and then that leather chick Raquel...I swore to myself there wouldn't be a third."

She nodded. Those exact thoughts had pretty much mirrored her own at the time.

"But like a moron, I managed to fuck things up with you again." He offered up a lopsided smile and lightly checked her shoulder with his. "The worst part, was that I was so close to getting it right and then I pulled my usual, paranoid bullshit and everything went off the rails. Guess I should of known better than to want something. I was dumb enough to make with the hubris, but the universe knew what was up."

Jackie's brow creased and she turned to him. "What do you mean you were 'so close to getting it right'?"

He ran his hand over his face a few times roughly and opened his mouth to answer.

"No. You know what?" With her arms practically glued to her sides and him at her front, she waved her hands as far into the air as she could manage. "I really don't want to know."

_Whatever it is, it can only make me feel worse._

"Of course you don't. Why would you? You're not the nosy type." He rolled his eyes.

She sharply inhaled and let the breath settle in her chest. "Sure. Just as you are definitely not the type to keep anything you're feeling inside. I've often wished you would just shut up about your stupid feelings and leave me the hell alone."

_Okay, now we really have entered bizarro world, because I kind of meant every word of that. Not back then, obviously, but now? Yeah. Telling me stuff like this isn't going to make me less angry and he should know that, but maybe this doesn't have anything to do with me. Maybe, as usual, this is about Steven trying to do what's right for him? He clearly wants forgiveness...or to get into my pants. I'm not going to give him either. Why should I give him what he wants when he never tried to give me what I wanted?_

Hyde's features were more open than she could ever before recall. "What's your problem?"

She found it funny how a phrase which they'd often launched at each other like poison-dipped arrows could come off sounding so sincere. She was caught off guard by his unexpected sincerity.

"My – _my_ problem? Oh, I don't know, maybe I don't like dwelling about what I lost...or maybe I just don't give a crap anymore, Steven." Jackie whipped her head up to bravely face him, the flecks of green in her brown eyes sparking like flint. "Did that ever occur to you? Or maybe you're just too wrapped up in your own shit to think about anybody but yo-"

He cut her off with his lips before she could finish her final word, flipping her back against the closet again, as he probed her mouth deeply with his tongue.

She whimpered into the back of his throat and weakly pushed him away. "Steven..."

Hyde cupped her face gently, smiled, and then pressed another bruising kiss to her lips. "You always did talk too much."

Jackie pushed him back again, harder this time. "Yeah, but you never said much of anything at all. Somebody had to pick up the slack."

They glared at each other for a moment - until she broke - then wrapped her arms tightly around his neck and kissed him senseless. "This means nothing, by the way," she murmured, in-between their kisses.

_What the hell are you doing, Jackie? What has gotten into you?_

His hands slid under the back of her t-shirt and caressed the bare skin on her lower back, as she molded herself to his hands. "Sure it does."

_Oh yeah. That._

Without separating her mouth from his, she spoke to him, each word punctuated by one staccato kiss. "I'm. Being. Completely. Serious. Steven."

Hyde grinned - looking as thoroughly victorious as they both knew he was - and grabbed her behind, launching her up to his midriff and coaxing her legs to lock around his waist. "Uh-huh."

_It's not like you're crossing a new line, and hey, maybe sore muscles and a cluster of finger-shaped marks on your thighs won't be the only memories you get to keep the morning after you do it this time? _

Jackie held his face in her hands and looked at him sternly. "This is just sex-sex. It isn't marital sex."

She heard his boxers slide down his legs to the floor and she jostled a bit as he kicked them off. "Give me five minutes and it will be."

_Well, he always did have a really talented mouth..._

* * *

**A/N 2 - So...what do you think? Should I keep going or have you had enough? If a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears, did it really fall at all? That's my metaphorical way of asking you to leave a review, if you have the time, energy, and inclination. I'd love to hear from you :)**

**Thanks for reading!**


	3. Can't Keep it In

**A/N - I know, I know...I let you down in the smut department, but I didn't want to turn this into a porno (just yet). You may not see too much smut until the very end, but I could always change my mind if it makes sense in the context of the scene. I just want to make their interaction count, rather than have mindless screwing for the sake of it. They've always expressed their feelings physically, so by holding back, I'm sort of showing how the characters are also holding back. I know, I'm a tease, but keep reading :)**

**Also, I've been furiously writing both this fic and 'Red Herrings', so I've barely had a chance to respond to anybody's comments, but you are all amazing and each one is appreciated greatly! **

**Sidenote: if you haven't checked out Veronica Mars - you MUST. It's the best show ever. If you like JH, you will love the VM pairing - they are scorching. It's a funny, complicated, intelligent show, and if you like witty banter, it's got it in spades. Plus, the main character is honestly the best female character I've ever seen on tv. I'm *not* just saying this because I write for that fandom, it really is a crazy good show with layered characters. You still have time to binge-watch all three seasons before the movie comes out. You will come back and thank me for the rec, I promise!**

* * *

**CHAPTER 3**

_**Last night.**_

_Jackie and Hyde laid side-by-side, basking in the afterglow of their latest round of love-making. She'd been losing track of the time and how exactly they'd been using it - she could barely recall what they done to each other ten minutes ago - but if the throbbing feeling in her nether regions was anything to go by, she was pretty sure she enjoyed herself._

_Using the engraved lighter she had given him for his 18th birthday, Jackie lit up an expertly-rolled joint and took a long drag, holding the smoke in her lungs for nearly 30 seconds before letting it out. "I can't believe Fez is marrying Crazy Caroline. They're like, the second to last couple I ever figured would make it down the aisle." She took another hit and exhaled a cloud of grey into the air before handing the spliff off to Hyde._

_"Who's the last?" Hyde asked, and brought the joint to his lips._

_"The last what?" Through her fog, she could barely understand the words coming out of her own mouth._

_"The last couple you thought would get hitched." His words were strained as he struggled to keep the smoke deep in his chest while speaking._

_"Oh." Jackie nodded during her processing delay and then turned her head to answer him. "Us, of course. Who did you think I was gonna say?"_

_"Forman and Donna. Two aborted engagements and a walk-out does not inspire confidence." He turned to catch her reaction._

_"Okay, maybe they're second. Fez and Caroline can be bumped to third, but we're still number one. Weeee're num-ber one! Whoo!" She pretended to cheer, then leaned forward and pulled a hit off of the joint he was holding between his fingertips. "Normally, as you know, I love being number one, but in this case, the honor is abominable."_

_"Abominable?" _

_"Abominable. A-bom-in-able. My tongue feels weird when I say it. Abominable." __She touched her fingers to her lips._ "It means horrible." 

_"I know what it means, Jackie, I'm not Kelso." His brow furrowed. "How do you figure we're worse than Forman and Donna? Forman got on a plane to freakin' Africa to avoid marrying her, at least I stayed stateside when I dumped you."_

_"Lucky me." She wondered for a moment what the hell possessed her to give her body to this jerk again, but then caught a glimpse of the overturned champagne bottle on the floor and had her answer. She was momentarily distracted by the plumes of "O" shaped smoke popping out of his mouth and rising in the air like phantom donuts. "You know, at least he asked her. Twice. And even though the diamond was nearly invisible and I paid for half of it, she even sort-of got a ring...if one could call it that. Me? I got a used t-shirt. I'd say that makes them twice as likely to have gotten married, at least."_

_Hyde climbed on top of her again. Straddling her waist, he took a long, hard drag of smoke, held it in his lungs for a moment, and then bent forward and pressed his lips to hers, shotgunning the smoke into her mouth. He watched her intently as she inhaled deeply, pulling his warm air into her chest. It almost made her feel as close to him as she had while he was inside of her. "Let's get hitched."_

_Jackie's eyes widened and she released the smoke in a fit of coughing. Hyde pulled her up to a sitting position and softly patted her back until the wracking ended. "What the hell? Dillhole." She socked him in the arm, using all her strength. "That wasn't funny!"_

_"It was to me." He smirked at her ire. "Anyway, you were bitching about me never asking you to sign documents allowing the government to validate our relationship and moaning about how I never got you a ring. I thought asking you now might square things with us." He took a hit and held it in._

_"How so?"_

_"Because, you were only half right before." He exhaled, and passed her the joint, then dropped a kiss on the side of her neck and tracked it across her collar bone as he continued speaking. "I didn't ask you, but I did buy you a ring." _

_She grabbed his shoulders and pulled him off of her to see his face. "You bought me a ring? I don't remember getting a ring. I wouldn't forget jewelry, Steven."_

_"That's because I never got a chance to give it to you, genius." He snapped, before snatching the roach from her fingers and stubbing it out in the nearby ashtray._

_She rubbed her temples and tried to concentrate, the pot was clouding her brain. "Why wouldn't you have had a chance? We dated for two years. What the hell were you waiting for?"_

_Hyde was holding so much back, that he looked like he might fall over and pass out if she nudged him hard enough._

_"I didn't wait. I got the damned thing and then went to give it to you the very next day," he said quietly._

_Jackie exhaled her annoyance and held out both of her palms in question. "So what stopped you?" He wasn't even close to answering her, when the realization hit. "Oh."_

_Chicago._

_"Yeah...oh," he grumbled, and sank back into the pillow._

_"I didn't know." Her chest tightened with the knowledge of what could have been, and if she weren't so high, she might've cried her eyes out at the revelation. "What -why did it take me threatening you to get you to propose?"_

_He shrugged. "Wasn't ready."_

_"Then why were you planning to do it?" She leaned on her side and looked at him with a deep, inquisitive stare. He was lucky he smoked her up before telling her this, because he'd be walking funny, otherwise._

_"You made it pretty clear what would happen if I didn't."_

_Her stomach sank, remembering the ultimatum she had given him. Even just after she'd said it, she knew it was the wrong move. If she could have taken it back or reworded it somehow to seem less demanding, she would have done it. All she wanted was a declaration of some sort, a promise, words of love, anything! _

_She had never taken a stand like this before with him though, and even though the execution was clumsy, she knew she couldn't back down or it would take the bite out of every warning or promise she ever made in the future. She had to know how he felt about her, so she put it out there, and it was her lot to deal with the consequences...but she never in a million years thought those consequences would include him marrying somebody else, much less a total stranger. Nobody who knew him could have ever imagined him doing something so perverse. "It was a stupid thing to do, trying to force you to marry me. I mean, don't get me wrong, I still deserved to know how serious you were, but the way I went about it was..."_

_"Yeah."_

_"I really drove you to the edge, huh?"_

_"You're driving me to the edge right now." He slipped his hand between her thighs and her back involuntarily arched toward him._

_She watched his chest rise and fall with his rapid breath, the rhythm of it nearly hypnotizing her, and her own breathing sped up to match. "You really bought me a ring? What did it look like?"_

_"This is turning you on, isn't it?" Hyde laughed and stilled his hand. "I was wondering how it took you so long to ask me that."_

_Jackie hands gripped the sides of his shoulders, and she buried her head into his chest with embarrassment. "I didn't want to appear shallow."_

_"You? Shallow? Pfft!" He couldn't seem to stop laughing, and she couldn't help but join in, even though she wanted to pout._

_"You're so mean, Steven Hyde! You're like, the meanest boy I've ever known." _

_He cackled in her face and then nipped once at her swollen bottom lip. "Yeah, and you totally dig it."_

_"No, I hate it. You're a pig." Jackie unsuccessfully tried to force her face into a frown._

_"Yeah, that's probably true," he said, as his laughter trailed off to nothing. "I'm sorry I fucked everything up with us."_

_She swallowed the lump in the back of her throat and let his apology sink in. "Me too."_

_They moved closer to each other until their lips met in a chaste kiss. "Was my ring pretty?" He gave her a look. "What? It's not like I'm going to let it go."_

_He kissed her again and again. "I blew practically every last dime I'd saved up."_

_Jackie gasped and brought one of her hands to her heart. "You did?" _

_"I figured, you know, if I'm only gonna do it once, I may as well do it right." Hyde covered her hand with his own and spread his fingers out across her sternum. "That worked out."_

_As hard as she tried, she couldn't seem to get enough air into her lungs. Finding out just how close she came to getting everything she ever wanted, before losing it all, strangely had that effect. "You really did love me, didn't you?"_

_He shook his head and she held her breath. "I really do love you."_

_Jackie smiled, then moved her other hand down under the sheet, and watched Hyde's eyes roll back and his breathing speed up one more time._

_"I don't know if you're lying, but that's the nicest thing you've ever said to me." He tried to sit up, but she pushed him back down and straddled his thighs. "God, I hope I remember all of this in the morning," she said,__ kissing her way down the valley of his chest until she reached his navel. _

_It wasn't until she took him into her mouth, that she heard him faintly whisper. "Me too."_

* * *

**The present.**

Hyde rolled off of Jackie and flopped down next to her in the bed. The air in the room was thick with heat and the smell of sex permeated every square foot. It was unavoidable, the way they had been going at it over the last 24 hours.

_Damn, that was...damn._

Jackie was panting, still trying to catch her breath, when she started to giggle. "I think we may have fogged up the windows, like we used to in the El Camino."

The corners of his mouth turned up as Hyde also slowed his breathing down. "I think we fogged up the mirrors in the bathroom, too."

She let her head roll bonelessly toward Hyde's. "Was this what is was like last night? I mean, I remember some of the...um, naked parts, but it kind of feels like remembering a dream. Real, but not real. You know?"

"This was better." He waggled his eyebrows, but even his joking couldn't fully cover up the edge of anxiety clinging to the corners of his voice like a nervous child.

Jackie let out a puff of laughter. "Good. I'd hate to think I missed out on something better than this, because this was...yeah. So, what made this better?"

"You ask a lot of questions for a chick who I just screwed senseless." Hyde angled onto his side to face her, then pushed her sweaty hair off of her neck and blew a stream of cool air onto it. She closed her eyes and enjoyed the impromptu wind tunnel. "You were sober, doll. That's what made it better."

Her face scrunched and she cringed self-consciously. "Was I really sloppy last night or something?"

_I know I look like Donna after prom right now, but the idea that I might have been bad in bed is just...no._

Hyde groaned loudly and pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes. "How should I know? Almost every time I do it nowadays, it's drunk and sloppy." He looked a little embarrassed to be explaining this to her.

Jackie's nose crinkled in disgust. "That's gross Steven. You never used to do that with me. Why would you bother having sex with those girls, if you have to get so- -?"

He interrupted her impatiently. "Get there faster."

Her stomach contracted into a tight ball and she smacked his arm. "I'm hung over! Just say what you're trying to say, already."

While gritting the back of his teeth, his gaze drifted absently beyond her. "You're smarter than most people think, I'm sure you don't need me to hold your hand through this one."

Her head tipped slowly side to side. "I'm afraid my mind-reading skills have gotten a bit rusty since the last time we broke up."

_Why won't he just say it? What the hell's the big deal?_

They were in a deadlock, and as usual, neither wanted to give up any ground. The difference this time though, was that Jackie had no ground left to give.

_I gave it all to you last time._

"Come on." His eyes were begging her to understand, but there was no way she would do his work for him this time. She'd always settled for way less than she should of where Steven was concerned, and if he felt like he wanted her to know something, he'd have to suck it up and tell her just like any other guy would. She was through granting him special exemptions.

She watched passively as a curious looked passed over Hyde's features. He was internally struggling with something. "Do you ever think about...how it used to be with us, you know, during the good times?"

_I've kind of blocked all of that from my thoughts out of necessity._

Jackie felt her cheeks heat up and she got a little flustered. "No. I don't, okay? I don't know what this meant to you, but all it was for me was a physical release. I'm not really up for reminiscing about 'the good old days', especially since they were really only good for one of us."

Hyde lifted himself halfway up onto his elbow. "What the hell is that supposed to mean? All of a sudden, you're pretending we were never happy?"

"Were you happy? I wouldn't know, you never mentioned it." All of the heat evaporated from her skin, leaving her feeling cold, inside and out.

"Were you?" His blue eyes were piercing her invisible armor, forcing her to look at him. He was obviously very shaken by the idea that everything he'd once thought she felt was just a mistaken assumption, and she let herself enjoy his moment of insecurity without guilt.

_I wonder if he enjoyed mine for the last few years?_

"There were times when I got caught up in the moment, we were laughing and having a blast doing something stupid together that nobody else would find funny but us, and I completely forgot about the fact that what we had was so fleeting and that I probably didn't mean as much to you as you meant to me...I was really happy then," she admitted, a wistful smile forming on her face. "But then something would happen that would pull me out of it. Like, I'd tell you that I loved you and you'd say 'That's cool', or you'd call something that I cared about dumb and made me feel superficial for liking it. And of course, there were those few times you accused me of cheating when I didn't, and then cheated on me in revenge for it...those weren't what I'd call 'good times'. Stuff like that."

Hyde looked as though he'd had the wind knocked out of him, and it made her feel bad for him, even though she logically knew she had every right not to.

_It's not like I'm lying or intentionally trying to be mean. He should really appreciate that, since almost everything I say is a lie to most guys._

"Whatever." He reached for his glasses, but ended up knocking them onto the floor by mistake and grunted his frustration. "You're not just saying all of this to be a bitch, right? Because you're mad at me for the whole Sam thing?"

_Fuck you._

"Maybe I should just go?" Jackie tried to sit up, but Hyde rushed to pin her back down to the bed, eyes wide with fear.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry, okay?" His expression was hopeful, which was something she hadn't seen in a long time. "I asked a question and you answered, so end of story...whatever. Anyway, where the hell were you planning on going? This is your room."

Jackie smirked. "I was trying for a dramatic exit and you totally ruined it."

"Diva." The mocking scowl on his lips fell into a resigned, flat line. "It's just as well you know, because I'm not letting you go."

_Did he accidentally knock his skull against the headboard while he was banging me up against it?_

She raised an eyebrow at him, knowing her look would explain how she felt about _that_ statement.

"I'm your husband, you're stuck with me." He attempted a carefree grin that looked a lot closer to a wince of pain.

Jackie used to like it when he got territorial about her and staked his claim. She was almost certain she resented it right now, though.

"Did you know that Nevada is a no-fault divorce state? Interesting fact, no? I read it in the brochure downstairs." She flashed him a smile, knowing she had won this round, then fast realized in reality, they had both lost. The absurdity of their situation was the true victor, it had beaten them both. "If I didn't know any better, I might conclude that this town almost encourages debauchery and personal irresponsibility."

Hyde exhaled and shook his head in what Jackie assumed was mock disbelief. "That's kind of what I was counting on."

_What the WHAT?_

"You're saying you tricked me into this?" Her eyes narrowed as they tried to tease out the sincerity in his voice. "You're actually telling me you came here to get me drunk and then trap me into a loveless marriage?"

Hyde's chest heaved a few times before answering. "Not...loveless."

_He wouldn't marry me, wouldn't say he loved me, when either of those things would have made me happy beyond my wildest dreams. Now, he has the nerve to waltz in here a year and a half after he destroyed me and do both? Who the hell does he think he is trying to fuck with my head like this? Just because a guy is good with his hands doesn't mean all is forgiven._

An emotion Jackie couldn't identify rose in her body, propelling a broken cackle to erupt hoarsely from her throat. "There is _way_ too much wrong with...I can't even...how could you think...?" The force of her anger pushed her backward out of bed onto the floor, and she gripped the side table to pull herself back up to stand. "Get out."

"Are you fucking kidding me, man?"

She couldn't tell if he was hurt, mystified or pissed, but she secretly hoped it was a combination of all three. Her shaky finger pointed at the door, in case he'd forgotten the way. "Get the fuck out of here, Hyde!"

"No."

She sputtered, completely unprepared for his response. She figured he'd carry on with his usual schtick and say some nasty, below the belt remark before storming off in a huff in the opposite direction from her. What was she supposed to do with...this?

"No?" Jackie pressed her fist into her hipbone hard enough to cause a bruise. "You telling me, no?"

"No." Hyde crawled across the bed and rose up on his knees to reach her level. "Just come back to bed, Jackie, will ya?"

She was tempted. So very very tempted, but she was not that girl anymore.

_I won't be his plaything._

She wouldn't be his anything, especially not his fake wife. There was nothing in it for her except for low self-esteem and heartbreak. She knew the drill.

"No."

Hyde gawked at her, and slowly sank back down to a sitting position. "You're serious."

Jackie's lips pouted in sadness, but she successfully held back the tears she could feel building behind her eyes. "You thought with a little sweet talk and some mind-blowing sex, I would just cave and let myself be your doormat again?"

"Is this for real? First you were never happy and now you were my doormat?" As usual, his eyes explained everything, her words had wounded him deeply. "A doormat?" He let out a bitter laugh and ran both hands through his curly hair. "Huh...and here I always thought you were too good for me. If you're a doormat, I wonder what that makes me, then?"

"A pair of combat boots." She leveled a steely gaze at him. "Just please leave, Steven, okay? We can take care of the annulment after Fez's wedding, and it'll be just like this all never happened."

His face grew hard and he dropped his eyes to the carpet, but his voice sounded small and vulnerable, and it took everything within her to resist holding him to her breast. "Is that really what you want?"

_No!_

Her head jerked into a frantic nod. "It's for the best, don't you think?"

Hyde said nothing, just continued to stare at the rug.

"Okay. We have a bridal luncheon with everybody in a few hours. I'm going to take a shower now, and maybe we can talk a little more about the annulment then." Jackie stood before him, apprehensively shifting her weight from leg to leg. "This is for the best," she mumbled again, and then nearly ran into the bathroom to escape him.

* * *

As the door shut behind her, she leaned against it and smothered her mouth with both hands, then ran over to the shower and turned it on for sound cover.

_What the hell have you done?_

Jackie pulled the curtain aside and stepped gingerly into the tepid water. She couldn't wait until it got warm enough, she had to get in and wash the smell of him from her body, get rid of any trace of what had happened between them.

She grabbed the bottle of lavender body wash from the shelf and worked it into a lather in her hands, then spread the scented foam all over her body and scrubbed hard, trying to will herself to a peaceful place with the smell of wild flowers.

As her hands worked their way across her torso, she noticed her wedding band, and tried to roughly pull it from her left ring finger, to no avail.

_Did he glue this on me or something? I wouldn't put anything past him at this point._

She squeezed a generous amount of soap onto her hand and tried to tug the band free, but the harder she pulled, the more stuck it seemed to get.

Hot tears mixed with the now-hot water of the shower and they ran down her face in tracks. "I hate this stupid thing!"

He had driven her to this blasphemy – hating jewelry, a wedding ring no less – and even though this was never something she would have ever picked out for herself while sober, she hated him even more for it.

A gush of cold air hit her back, and she felt the too familiar sensation of having Steven within reach. "What do you want?" She sniffled and continued her quest to remove the ring.

"You didn't let me answer."

"What?"

"No." He said nothing else, just stood there and waited for her to turn around. When she is was apparent she wouldn't, he continued speaking. "I don't think it's for the best."

Jackie turned around slowly, but kept on yanking at her finger, taking out all of her frustration on her poor, reddened fourth digit.

His large hands settled on hers and separated them from each other like dogs at a park. "You're only making it swell up more. We can get you some ice after we dry off."

"We?" She wiped the salt water from her cheek with the back of her hand. "What are you still doing here?"

_Seriously!_

"You're my wife," he said simply.

"Not good enough." She pulled her hands from his. "Tell me why you came here this weekend."

Hyde grabbed her hands again. "I wanted to see you."

Her lips pursed. "Why? To have sex?"

He shook his head. "I can get pussy back in Wisconsin without blowing a fortune on a last minute flight."

_That's true. You barely have to buy sluts beer to get laid back home._

"So you came here to - what - talk? We don't live that far from each other, Steven, you could have talked to me in Point Place."

"I didn't know what was wrong, until I-"

"Why now? Why Vegas? Why me? Why?" Jackie's face flushed with anger from her tantrum.

"Last year...just after Midnight on the water tower...I watched Fez kiss you." His voice was low, and his gaze set firmly on their entwined hands. "It made me sick."

_You're not the only one._

"That was a really bad kiss." Jackie's face wrinkled at the memory, then her eyes widened. "And if you tell that whack job fiancee of his about it, I will make you miserable."

"You already make me miserable, doll." A shadow of a smile passed over his features.

"Good." Her expression belied her words.

Hyde played with her fingers, absentmindedly caressing each one of them from base to tip in a slow rhythm. "After you dropped the bomb and Fez ran off crying like a bitch, I came up to you, do you remember that?"

"Like I could forget?" She sighed heavily. "I was so mortified that you saw that. You burned me so badly that night. It took everything I had not to slug you."

"You did slug me, Jackie." He grinned at her hands and brought one of them to his lips.

"Oh. That's right, I forgot." She sniffed and held her chin high. "Well, you deserved it."

He shrugged. "Little boys always pull the hair of the girls they like."

She retracted her hand from his grasp. "You did more than pull my hair, Steven. You called me toxic, and then asked me how I could stand to look at myself in the mirror after screwing things up with every guy in the group but the dork."

"Man, you've got a mind like a steel trap." Hyde's jaw tightened.

"You're just realizing this now? You've said so many things to hurt me that you've lost track. Maybe it's all the dope, I don't know?" She leaned under the shower head and soaked her hair, knowing full-well he was watching the show with rapt attention. "I remember every word."

_Why not torture him a little? He should be tortured._

Jackie sighed and poured a dollop of shampoo into her hands, then rubbed them together. "It took everything I had not to break down crying in front of you that night. You really have a talent for finding me at my lowest." She rubbed the soap into her hair and made gentle circles on her scalp with closed eyes.

"I know." He slid his fingers into her hair, brushing up against hers, and helped her scrub. "But you didn't break down. Do you remember what you said to me?"

Her eyes popped open with the intimate gesture and she let her hands fall by her sides. "Resolutions aren't just for New Year's."

"Yeah." Hyde brought his face closer to hers. "I didn't get what you meant by that then, I thought it was a dig at me."

"It was." Her pout remained firm as she tipped her head back and let him squeeze the soap from her hair as it rinsed clean.

"That's not all you meant. You were telling me to get my shit together, that I shouldn't just wait around like a punk and let life happen to me."

"You were capable of more." She leaned her cheek into the palm of his hand and closed her eyes. "I know you always said we were never friends, but you were always my friend." She noticed her affectionate move and took a cautious step back from him. "Maybe my expectations of you were always too high or I was too impatient with you to let things happen naturally, but I'm just not the type to sit back and accept mediocre when I know that you've got the best inside of you."

"I used to think it was really fucking annoying, how pushy you were, but now I know it's...probably one of the things I love best about you." He mumbled the last part of the sentence but the sentiment was clear.

_I've got to get out of here. I know me, he's just going to suck me right back into his vortex, toss me around like a rag doll and then spit me back out like a tornado when he moves on._

Jackie hiccuped air and tried to take another step back, narrowly avoiding the waterfall. "I need to..."

Hyde's forehead creased and he cradled her face in his hands. "No you don't. You don't need to do anything but stay here and let me tell you that I love you. Okay?"

_Oh Jesus. This is not happening right now. Like this!_

"No. Not okay." She shook her head. "You're telling me you love me in a shower, I can't get this ugly, stupid ring off, and this was just supposed to be a one-night stand."

He laughed hard and loud. "Nothing with us is ever _just_ anything, and you knew that last night when you left your door open and invited me in."

_Why is he doing this to me now? Can I just once get what I want when I want it?_

His hands ghosted the sides of her neck. "I want you."

Jackie rolled her eyes. "What else is new?"

Hyde balked and breathed out his annoyance. "I don't just want to fuck you."

She peered into his face. "That's all we're really good at, Steven."

He shook his head slowly. "Nah, that's one of the things we're best at, but we're pretty good at some other things too. You just forgot."

_Of course I didn't forget._

"What are you saying?" This was it, the moment of truth. He would either lay it on the line or run off with his tail between his legs like he normally did.

"I'm saying we should do this." He held her neck in place, forcing her to look at him. "We're married, Jackie. We should give it a shot."

She considered it for a second and then shook her head. "You don't have to give it a shot, just because you feel obligated."

He tilted his head to the side and smirked. "Since when do I feel obligated to do anything?"

"You felt obligated to Sam." It was still hard for her to say the other woman's name.

His jaw tensed again. "I didn't feel shit about Sam. I stayed with her just to piss you off."

"And I thought _I _was spiteful." Jackie didn't believe him. Steven was an of-the-moment kind of guy, he didn't have the patience for the long con. Neither of them did.

_If he'd wanted to punish me, it would have been swift, he wouldn't have changed his whole life for months to make it happen._

"Fine. You really want to know?" He closed his eyes. "I stayed with her to keep me from fucking up your life anymore than I already had."

_Oh my God. I was not expecting that at ALL._

"I assumed it was for all that porn star sex that she gave you." She crossed her arms over her chest to hide her body. "I know I was never as experienced or as dirty as you wanted me to be."

They stared each other down, until finally he broke. "Come on, Jackie! Don't be an idiot. You were plenty dirty, especially by the end. You even had _me_ a little nervous with some of the stuff you were willing to try."

Her beautiful features screwed into a ferocious sneer and she lightly shoved him. "Steven, if this is you trying to win me back, then you might want to up your game a bit, _man_."

Hyde stroked the smooth contours of her ring. "I already got you back. This is me trying to keep you." He brought her arms back down to her sides and then pulled her closer. "Resolutions aren't just for New Year's, princess."

Jackie looked skeptical as he wrapped her arms around his waist. "Except that it _is _New Year's."

"You can't knock it off for two minutes?" He took a deep breath and looked down at her with intensity. "You really are a huge pain in my ass, but I must be a masochist, because I obviously love the pain. Maybe I was lobotomized?"

She fought off the urge to smile. "Funny. I've often wondered if you were lobotomized. Maybe we have more in common than I thought?"

Jackie was a woman of action. Words were just words, though these _were_ words that he'd only said once in two years.

_Maybe his saying them to me could be considered an action?_

Hyde kissed her softly on the lips, demonstrating his restraint. "I do, you know...love you."

He looked at her, waiting for a response she had no intention giving him just yet. In her mind, though, she already knew what she longed to say back. As the corners of her mouth curled into a smile, she prayed that he meant what he said and that that one day she actually could bring herself to say it back.

"Good to know."

* * *

**A/N - this one was long and talky, but they got a lot out of issues out of the way. Now comes the point where they see if they can exist in the real world together or if the only way they can get along is locked in a hotel room. An old friend will appear in chapter 4. Any guesses as to whom it will be?**

**Thanks for all of your favs, alerts and wonderful comments. I appreciate them all! If you've got the time, please review!**


	4. Two Fine People

**A/N -Thanks for everybody who left feedback on the last chapter. I am taking this story somewhere - it will take place over the course of one night, like Resolutions did, only more fleshed out. **

**To those who have likened my Hyde in this story to Season 5 Hyde, that's a good call. S5 Hyde was probably everybody's favorite, and I'm no different. He was still Hyde - pent up, angry, bad at expressing himself, but he had a sweetness and took good care of Jackie and looked out for her welfare. Realistically, it would take more than a few years to turn him into a different type of guy (if that's even possible), so I figured it would be easier to return him to what he once was :)**

**Hope you enjoy... **

* * *

**CHAPTER 4**

Jackie groaned and pulled the string on her bright green wrap dress, unfurling the bow.

"That's like, the fourth time you've pulled out the same damn knot." Hyde stood behind her in the bathroom mirror and popped open one extra button than he normally would on his dress shirt, then took in her form appreciatively and smirked. "Grasshopper."

She looked down at the color of her dress and then rolled her eyes with mirth at his reflection. "I'm redoing it, because it's not perfect, Steven. That may not be important to you, but some people care." She shook her head, wondering how he could even ask her such a stupid question, before correcting him. "And it's a bow, not a knot."

_Something about this feels oddly familiar, and yet...different?_

"Gimme that." Wrapping his solid arms around her waist from behind, his wrestled the limp ties from her hands. "You're just trying to keep it from falling off, right? How hard can that be? Why does everything with you always gotta be perfect?"

"I don't know." She leaned back against his chest and closed her eyes. "It just does."

Jackie felt him tugging at the strings on her dress and stifled a laugh, imagining how adorable he probably looked trying to work out how to tie a bow.

_Slow down, girl. It's just a bow._

She could feel his breath on the side of her neck as he craned around her to see what he was doing. With a furrowed brow, he gave the task his full concentration. The idea of him trying so hard to get it right for her, when she knew he couldn't care less about women's clothing, made her smile.

"I don't know why I'm putting so much effort into making this stay on you when all I wanna do is take it off."

Jackie opened her eyes again and looked down at Hyde's sloppy handiwork. The bow was lopsided, one side bigger than the other, and the entire thing was double-knotted for extra support. It looked like a first-grader had done it for her.

"Yeah, so...it's pretty crappy, but hey, it's staying on you, right?" Hyde pressed his mouth into a dissatisfied line. "Guess I underestimated the whole knot thing, huh?"

She ran her fingers over the awkward bow and met his gaze in the mirror. "I don't know...I kind of like it like this."

_It looks awful, and if we were back in Point Place, there's no way I'd leave the house like this where anyone and their mother could see me. One report back to those bitchy LOPP gossip hounds, and the entire town would know I'd left the house dressed like a hag. _

_But we're not in Point Place, and this bow means he's trying. Finally._

Hyde cocked his head to the right to get a better look at her face, and let out a small chuckle. "You are such a damn liar."

She laughed along with him. "Yeah...I mean, no. I know I kind of look like I was dressed by cave people, but it kind of has its rustic charm." She turned to look at her profile, then flicked her eyes back up to his. "It's perfect."

Her spun her the rest of the way around to look at her directly. An emotion she couldn't read passed over his face, followed by an intense glare that she was more than familiar with. "How long is this lunch thing?"

"Your guess is as good as mine."

"Think we can cut out early?" He raised an inquisitive eyebrow at her.

She scowled at the suggestion, though secretly loved that he still wanted her so much. They'd been wearing each other out so much over the past day, that she was sure he'd be sick of her by now. "I know I'm hot Steven, but we've got to come up for air sometime."

_I'm pretty sure I pulled something in my calf earlier, and even you're having trouble walking after that shower rendezvous._

Hyde looked a bit wounded by her response. "Why do you assume that question is about sex? I couldn't possibly have anything else in mind to do with you?"

Jackie was taken aback. The thought really hadn't crossed her mind. "I – I didn't realize..."

"Yeah, well now you do."

When they were dating, his favorite thing to do with her was to shack up with a pizza and a bag of weed and spend the day naked together. Not that she didn't love those times they shared, it's just that she was never as much of a homebody as he was.

Before they'd gotten together, she was the consummate social butterfly. Being with Michael made that easy, since he was popular too and loved to party. Without a doubt, she would have gone out nearly every single night if she hadn't been dating Steven Hyde.

Jackie never regretted her choice, though. There would always be club, but there wouldn't always be Steven. At least, that was what she thought then. She assumed it was all fleeting. He never led her to think otherwise.

"You're taking me somewhere?"

"What if I am?" He raised his chin to her in challenge.

Jackie shrugged and took a step closer to him. "Like a date?"

Hyde mimicked her shrug and cupped her face in his hands. "Would you wanna go on one with me, if I was asking?"

She thought about it for a moment and lowered her chin, affecting a coy expression. "Depends...are you asking?"

He worked his jaw for a moment before the corners of his mouth picked up slightly. "Kinda seems that way, doesn't it?"

"Kinda does..."

"So...?"

"So?"

Hyde took a deep breath and shook his head. He was most likely silently cursing her for busting his balls, but he never let on. "Go out with me, Jackie."

She frowned. "That's how you ask a girl out?"

"Jackie..." His patience was wearing thin and he had chased her until he was well out of his comfort zone. She had to meet him halfway, it was the right thing to do.

_He came here for me. All of this was for me. Am I an idiot for hoping he really has changed?_

Jackie bit her bottom lip and looked up at him. "Why not? I've never been to Vegas before, might as well see something besides the inside of this hotel room."

His eyes raked over the room and settled on her, the intention behind his stare forcing the air from her lungs. "I don't know princess, I'm kind of growing fond of the inside of this hotel room."

She grinned into his lips as he lifted her off the ground and kissed her. "You know...I won't be pissed if you do over the knot on your dress. It looks like that Home-Ec project Kelso got a D on in fifth grade."

"It's not a knot, Steven, it's a bow." Jackie smiled even wider now. "But thank you, I'm good the way it is. You, however..." She wrinkled her nose, then closed one of his top buttons and smoothed down the front of his shirt with her hand. "Look full-on Vegas."

Hyde waited patiently for her to realize her mistake.

"Oh." A sheepish laugh erupted from her chest. She reached over and flicked the button back open again. "Well, when in Vegas..."

She would always wonder what could've been if she didn't see how this thing played out. In the end, this could be the one thing she needed to move on from him. And if by some remote chance they could make it work...

_Stop thinking like that, Jackie. You're just courting disappointment._

* * *

Jackie apprehensively twisted a lock of dark hair around her right index finger and wondered if she was just kidding herself, thinking she could keep this marriage a secret from her closest friends and unofficial family.

_Michael shouldn't be too hard to fool, since he is a fool. Fez could be more difficult, but he's probably going to have his hands too full with his Looney Toons fiancee to notice little details like that. The skinny geek barely even talks to me, much less looks at me. The only real problem I could foresee would be Donna. That girl was always inconveniently too clever for my own good._

She made a fist with her left hand, planting it firmly into her hip. It wasn't high-tech, but it was the only way she could think of to hide her wedding band until they could get it off. At lunch, she could just keep her hand resting on her lap under the table. It wasn't foolproof, but maybe it would keep people from asking questions.

_Questions like 'Why the hell is Steven Hyde wearing a wedding band'?_

_Crap. _

She'd completely forgotten Hyde's abject refusal to remove his ring. Seeing one of the gang with a wedding band would be fishy enough – he hadn't even worn a ring when he was with Sam – but if both of them showed up with rings on, it wouldn't take much to put two-and-two together.

_He didn't wear a ring when he was 'married' to Sam._

Her breath caught in her throat.

"There you are!"

Jackie barely walked in the private dining room when she was immediately accosted by Caroline, looking higher strung than she had just a few hours before.

Her cerulean eyes filled up with tears at Jackie's arrival. "I was getting so worried about you, I thought something might've happened!"

"What could've happened on the walk from my room to the restaurant?" Jackie was truly confused. "Am I late or something?"

Caroline pointed to her watch, the tip of her finger turning white with the force in which she pushed on the crystal face. "Hello? You're eight minutes late. I thought maybe the Zodiac killer had gotten to you."

Jackie expelled a bored sigh. "The Zodiac Killer is in California, Caroline."

She threw up her arms. "Fine. The Hillside Strangler, then."

"Still California." Jackie narrowed her eyes at the crazy blonde and tried to ascertain if the insanity was merely an eccentricity or whether it was beginning to veer into something more sinister.

"What about Eddie Cole?" Caroline said, in a persnickety manner.

_Okay, this is definitely veering into the realm of danger. How does she know the names and murdering locales of every serial killer West of the Mississippi offhand?_

"While I appreciate the concern..." Jackie tried to figure out a way of tactfully asking Fez's bride what the fuck was wrong with her. "Why do you know so much about serial killers, anyway?"

Caroline shrugged. "I dunno. I guess it's kind of a hobby or something."

Jackie's eyes drifted toward the naive groom, sitting at the head of the table with a fruity beverage in hand, unwittingly about to hitch his wagon to a rogue horse.

_More like a half-mad donkey. _

Just as a shiver began to snake its way up her spine, a welcome sight fell within her eyeline.

"Aw yeah! I knew you'd show up looking smokin' hot." Michael Kelso smacked Fez across the chest with the back of his hand. "I told you she'd look hot, man. I don't know what you were so worried about."

Caroline's laser-like focus shifted off of Jackie and onto her groom. "You worried about Jackie looking hot? Why? Why were you worried?" She tittered nervously as she waited for an answer.

Kelso mimed the international symbol for loco behind the woman's back and bit down on his fist to keep from laughing.

Fez's face, however, froze into a frightened, death mask. "I – I was thinking about our wedding photos, muffin. You said you didn't want anybody in them that would detract the eye from my face."

An involuntary guffaw escaped Jackie's throat and she covered her mouth her both hands, before yanking her left one down and placing it by her side in a fist.

_Dammit!_

Too excited by her appearance to go around, Kelso climbed over the table gracelessly and swept Jackie up into his arms, swinging her feet back and forth like a pendulum. "You still weigh as much as a kitty cat."

She wrapped her arms tightly around her ex-boyfriend's shoulders and buried her face into his neck, giving him a squeeze. "You can put me down now, Michael."

"I don't wanna," he said with petulance, as he continued to shift her legs back and forth.

"I'm losing circulation in the lower half of my body," she whined.

"I can help you get that back, Jackie." Kelso grinned at her like a demonic child, and she couldn't help but laugh at his antics, before wincing in discomfort as his grip on waist grew tighter and tighter.

"Michael!" Jackie struggled to free herself from his grasp.

"Fine." Kelso reluctantly lowered her to the ground and pouted. "You're no fun anymore."

"She's plenty fun still," a male voice called out from across the room. "That is, if you know what you're doing with your hands."

Jackie looked over her shoulder and her eyes followed Hyde as he leaned up against a nearby wall, where he had obviously been observing her.

"Hyde!" Kelso promptly abandoned Jackie and fumbled his way toward his oldest friend. "Hey man!"

The gave each other a one-handed hug and clapped each other's backs firmly.

"Can you believe Fez is going to be the first one of us to get married? I totally thought it woulda been Forman."

_That's what you think._

Jackie felt Hyde's gaze burning a hole through her. "Steven got married here a year ago."

Hyde frowned at the reminder. "It was a year and a half. And it wasn't legal, so it doesn't count."

"Sometimes even the legal ones don't count," she volleyed back.

One corner of his mouth subtly curled up. "No, those always count, Jackie. You'll see."

Kelso, as usual, remained blissfully oblivious to the events happening around him.

"I have no idea what you guys are talking about..." Kelso said gleefully, wrapping an arm around each of his friends. "But, you're talking! And you're not killing each other!" He tugged them both a little closer.

"Yet," Jackie pointed out.

"Still!" Kelso's look of amazement remained intact. "I haven't seen you guys so civil to each other since before Hyde married that hooker."

Hyde blanched at the false description. "She was a stripper."

"Whatever, dude. She gave up her goods for money, am I right?" Kelso said, with a flourished gesture over his own chest. It was times like this when Jackie felt her affection for the dumb lug grow. "And you've been trying to kill little Jackie ever since."

_Gotta love an unfiltered Michael Kelso._

"I haven't been trying to kill, Jackie, you moron," Hyde snapped, before slamming his left fist into Kelso's shoulder. His friend recoiled from the force of the hit.

"Damn, Hyde. Are you wearing brass knuckles or something?" He rubbed his shoulder, with a look on his face that was a cross between angry and impressed. "Watch your back, Jackie."

Jackie pouted her lips and flipped her hair off her shoulder. "I'm too cute to murder."

Kelso nodded in agreement. "That's true, but somebody needs to tell that to Caroline. She spent ten minutes talking about you getting whacked by serial killers, before you got here."

Though her hangover had abated, the need for food began to gnaw at Jackie's insides and she was feeling faint.

_Maybe if I just splash some water on my face...?_

Jackie looked around the room. "Where's the bathroom, Michael?"

He nudged the carpet with the toe of his shoe in disappointment. "You just got here, Jackie, and you haven't even had a drink. You can't have to pee already."

"Maybe I want to freshen up?" She flipped her hair again, and internally cursed herself for not eating that packet of nuts Steven had left for her on the bedside table.

Kelso gave her the perverted once over. "You look pretty fresh to me."

Jackie's eyebrows raised in surprise as she noticed both of Hyde's hands tighten into fists. "Where's the bar?"

_Here we go, again..._

"Beats me. They just keep bringing out these fruity cocktails." Kelso grabbed one of the concoctions off of a passing waiter's tray and took a long, delighted sip. "They kind of taste like candy, though I'm pretty sure they're also alcoholic, because Fez would definitely need to get drunk before marrying the crazy chick."

"I'll catch you guys in a bit." Out of patience, Jackie walked off in the direction she assumed the bathrooms to be.

* * *

As she turned the corner into the secluded hallway, she felt a pair of hands grab her waist from behind and pull her into an abandoned ballroom. Her fight or flight instinct kicked in as she watched the heavy door shut itself behind her. "What the hell?"

Jackie stomped on the kidnapper's foot and gave him a backwards jab to the shin with her heel.

"Fuck!" Hyde doubled over in pain. "Why did you kick me?"

"Why did you grab me?" she shouted back, after spinning around to face him.

He rubbed the spot on his leg that she made contact with and grumbled. "You know why I grabbed you."

"Well..." That familiar tingling feeling began to stir in her stomach again. "I guess all that talk about serial killers got me feeling a little jumpy."

"I can easily take down the Manson Family, should they break out of the big house and come after you." He straightened up and immediately pulled her into his arms, where she went willingly.

"You would do that for me?" Jackie batted her coquettish eyelashes at him.

"You're really asking me that?" His baritone vibrated against her cheek through his chest.

She shook her head 'no' and snuggled closer to him.

Hyde cradled the back of her head with the palm of his hand and moved it slowly down the length of her hair, continuing down her back until it settled on the junction of her behind. "Let's blow this joint."

Jackie didn't even bother pretending to be shocked, since she'd known he would try to get her to leave the moment she felt his eyes following her interaction with Michael. "Come on, we just got here."

"I feel like putting my hands on you." Hyde's mouth turned down. "But you won't let me touch you in public."

"You know why." She frowned at him.

_Now, he's purposely being obtuse._

His fingers teased the swell of her behind through the material of her dress. "You used to let me."

"I used to let you do a lot of things I won't allow anymore," she said quietly and glanced the door for to make sure it was closed. An act that didn't go unnoticed by him.

Hyde gently lifted her chin and forced her to look at him. "You're really that embarrassed for people to find out about us?"

"_Of course_ I'm that embarrassed for people to find out, and there _is _no us! Not really, anyway." She felt bad for stating the obvious, but he was nuts if he thought it was all bygones between them.

_I can't trust him. How can I stay married to a man I don't trust? Love can only take you so far._

The look of betrayal in his eyes made her forget the year and place for a moment. It felt all too unpleasant and familiar, except that she was on the other side, this time.

"You can't really expect me to just..." Jackie waved a hand through the air like she was shooing flies. "Things have changed."

"Yeah, I know." He cleared his throat. "I've changed."

"Okay, but so have I. I'm not the same girl you were with before. Maybe I never was that girl?" She cast her eyes at the ground and worried her bottom lip with her teeth. "I don't know, Steven. Maybe you won't even want to be with this version of me. Have you even stopped to consider that?"

"This 'version' of you?" A smirk played upon his lips and he stroked the side of her face with his thumb. "You've always been a multiplex, doll, this is nothing new."

"Huh?"

"I've always known what you were, even if you didn't."

_What is he talking about?_

"Even when you were jailbait, following me around like a lost sheep with a dimebag of weed in your handbag, I knew there was a real person under that stiff dress of yours."

Her eyes widened at his confession. "If I was such a secret badass..."

Hyde lifted a finger. "I never said 'badass'."

"Shut up, Steven." She slapped his arm. "If you knew I was so cool underneath it all, why didn't you tell me? Why'd you tease me so much and make you think you hated me."

"Everybody has their own path to the Zen, baby. Yours just happened to include me giving you a hard time." He shrugged and pulled her closer by her waist. "My harassment shaped you."

She snorted a laugh. "Yeah? Ever think that maybe I liked who I was before?"

"You hated yourself. You were living a lie, and you were smart enough to know it while it was happening."

_Fuck. He's knows me too well for me to have this conversation with him._

Jackie's face grew hard and she glowered at him. "Like you weren't exactly the same way? You always pretended to be this leather-wearing, anti-establishment hippie, but you never fooled me. Deep down, you always wanted the white picket fence and the steady job. And if you were truly honest with yourself, you even wanted the girl too, but you were always just to scared to admit it. You wanted what you never had, what the Formans had."

Hyde looked utterly bewildered and struggled to regain his bearings. "You don't know what you're talking about."

"I know _exactly _what I'm talking about. And so do you." She smiled with smug satisfaction at the look of panic that swept Steven's features.

"You're wrong, Jackie," he said, weakly lifting his hand to adjust his glasses.

"Why did you come to Vegas, Steven?"

"I told you why."

She shook her head. "Another girl probably wouldn't have made you work so hard."

"Maybe things that comes easy, ain't worth having?" He looked stricken by the realization that she knew as much about the way he ticked as he did about her. "I just wanted to talk to you, wanted for you to hear me out, that's all. I didn't mean for you to get all wasted and sloppy."

_Just when I think we've moved up a level, he takes a flying leap off of the edge._

She kicked him in his other shin and he fell against the wall. "Don't call me sloppy."

"Sorry." He breathed through the pain and the finally looked up at her with a smile on his face. "But hey, since you did get sloppy, I'm now living the American Dream, right? I've got a wife and everything!" He was teasing her with what he knew was her own fantasy, and she didn't find it remotely funny.

Jackie exhaled the breath she'd been holding. "I'm not your wife."

"Yeah, you are." Hyde moved closer to her again and she pulled away, knocking off his sunglasses in the process.

She held out her hand to block him. "No. You've said many times that don't ever want to get married, and it's time I took you at your word. Like you said, I don't know what I'm talking about."

He yanked her closer by her outstretched hand, and pressed his lips to the side of her mouth, closing his eyes as he murmured against her pout. "I lied."

_And now I'm right back in the thick of it. I'm getting whiplash._

"Steven..." Before she could get out another word, he had her backed up against the wall.

"Kiss me," he demanded.

Jackie resisted the command with a sharp look, but her resolve quickly crumbled. She leaned forward and bestowed a chaste kiss on his lips.

"That's not a kiss."

She allowed him to pull her face toward his, then closed her eyes and parted her lips to grant him entry. He plunged his tongue deep into mouth and her blood caught fire.

Hyde mouthed his way down the column of her neck and she quivered in his arms. "Did you miss this?" Hyde whispered into her damp skin.

"Uh-huh."

"Did you miss this?" Hyde slid her hand down to his growing bulge and pushed her palm against it.

_Like a lost dog._

Jackie gasped at his firmness, amazed that she still had the ability to do that to him in such a short period of time.

"Uh-huh."

"I was getting hard just thinking about you in this dress...wanted to pull out the knot...and you're gonna let me do it." He bit down on the side of her neck and she cried out.

"It's a bow, Steven, not a..."

"Shut up, Jackie," he said without an edge, as he crushed his pelvis against her, instantly derailing her train of thought.

"We can't...we can't do this here..." she panted into his mouth. "They're probably wondering what happened to us."

"Let 'em wonder. What do you care?" He dragged his lips down to the hollow of her throat and groaned as her breathing sped up. "It's not like you were gonna eat that rubber chicken dinner anyway."

"What about Fez and Caroline?"

"Take off your underwear." Hyde lifted her skirt and placed his hand against her warm center for a moment, before attempting to slide his fingers past the elastic of her panties.

Jackie struggled to keep her composure. "I thought you said this wasn't about sex."

He halted his assault and slowly removed his hands from her body, then lowered her skirt like it was the last curtain call of a really sad play.

She instantly mourned the loss of his touch and wondered what had come over her that made her stop him, when everything in her body was screaming for him to continue.

_Why didn't I just let him? I wanted it. He knew I wanted it._

"It's not about sex." Hyde looked at her with resolve, before breaking out into a smirk. "It's not _not _about sex, but that's not the only thing."

She crossed her arms over her chest protectively. "What's it about then?"

"I told you...in the shower."

"Tell me again."

"Fine." Hyde owed her, and he knew that better than anyone. "I love you."

_He said it again! It must be true!_

The words washed over her like a balm and she let her head hit to back of the wall. "Thank you."

His eyebrows quirked nervously at her. "Do you, you know...still?"

_He can't tell? I must be a better actress than I thought. Well, I can't give him the satisfaction, not now anyway._

Jackie's eyes fluttered open and she stared placidly into the deep expanse of his eyes. "I don't know."

She took a breath and waited for the eventual fallout from her words. If their past was any indication, things were about to get distinctly ugly.

_Cue nasty tirade and eventual storming out of room here._

He struggled with what he wanted to say, but finally opened his mouth to speak. "Yet."

_Huh? That was unexpected._

The door of the room swung open and a shock of red hair flew past them, dragging a suitcase behind it.

"Eric! I'm just going to leave our stuff in here until after the meal!"

Jackie and Hyde's eyes met in mutual frustration at the interruption.

"Jeez. Don't offer to give me a hand or anything!" Donna sniped loudly in the direction of the door before her gaze fell on the clandestine pair, standing in the wings of the room.

"Hey..." Hyde said, trying to sound casual and failing miserably.

Jackie lifted her chin, determined to keep her dignity. "Hello, Donna."

The redhead looked with suspicion, back and forth between the former couple, then expelled a loud, disgusted moan. "Oh God. You two got married, didn't you?"

* * *

**A/N - Reviews were a little down in the last chapter, and I can never tell if it's because the chapter was boring or if people are just busy. If it's the former, please let me know - and also let me know why. You can always PM me if you're too shy to post. I'm always looking to make the WIP stories better, so if you have the time and the inclination, let me know what you think, either way.**

**I'll probably throw another flashback into the mix in the next chapter, so look for it. Oh yeah, and I ended up giving you three friends instead of one, so unless you guessed Eric, you were all correct :)**

**Thanks again for reading!**


	5. Another Saturday Night

**A/N - You guys are amazing! Thank you so much for all of the flattering reviews and the subscriptions to this fic. They are all much appreciated :) **

**Sorry about the delay, (I was busy updating the other WIP fic I'm writing for Veronica Mars) but I made this chapter bigger to make it up to you. Still hanging loose with no beta, so if you see some mistake that are glaring or bothering you, feel free to PM me. **

**Hope you enjoy the next installment...**

* * *

**CHAPTER 5**

**_Last night._**

_Her head felt as light as cotton candy as Hyde carried her on his back into the Golden Lasso Jewelry Shop._

_"Woah!" She dug her heels into his sides and pulled back on his shoulders hard with her hands._

_Hyde winced and bucked her forward to shift her weight. "Fuck, Jackie! I'm not really a horse. You know that right?"_

_She leaned forward and bit down on the top of his right ear a little too hard. "You didn't complain when I was riding you earlier." _

_Jackie was too drunk to care that she was acting like a horny idiot. She didn't give a shit what the sun-bleached, middle-aged sales clerk thought of her. _

_Hyde squeezed her ass with purpose, but the woman barely looked up from the register. _

_They may have been behaving wild, but their antics were clearly not remotely as interesting as the details of Burt Reynolds' most recent sexual escapades in the latest copy of 'The Enquirer'. _

_Hyde released Jackie's legs, sending her tumbling to the ground with a thud, then offered a strong hand back up._

_"Uh, not likely." Shocked by the sudden drop, Jackie regarded the offer of help with suspicion and pouted her bottom lip out as she straightened out her hot pink dress._

_"Come on, Jackie. You startled me." He rolled his eyes and curled his fingers in to coax her._

_ "You dropped me!"_

_"You kicked me!"_

_"So?"_

_Hyde looked at her as though his position on the matter should be obvious. "So...I don't like to be kicked."_

_A smirk crossed her lips as she rolled onto all fours and stretched her limbs out, advancing cat-like, slowly in his direction._

_His eyes darkened with lust as he watched her crawl toward him like a feral panther. "Fuck it. Let's go back and consummate this thing before it happens."_

_Finally reaching her destination, Jackie wrapped her hands around Hyde's left ankle and smoothed them up the leg of his jeans, stopping just behind the knee. "You like me on my knees, Steven?" she asked, barely above a whisper._

_Hyde nodded slowly, not even trying to hide the boner that was forming in his pants._

_Jackie smiled triumphantly, and then pulled his leg out from under him, sending him crashing to the floor next to her. "I like you on your knees too." The sight of Hyde splayed out in prone position on the floor sent her into full-blown laughter._

_"You are so gonna pay for that, princess..." The malice of Hyde's words was undercut significantly by his own chuckling. He sat back on his knees and crossed his arms over his chest with a weak-looking scowl._

_After turning another page of her magazine, the woman at the counter sighed from boredom._

_Jackie inched forward until she and Hyde were knee-to-knee, then rose up, threw her arms around his neck and kissed him deeply. "No. You are so going to pay..." she looked around the room until she located the glass display with the wedding rings in it and pointed, "for that."_

_Hyde turned to the jewelry case and then back to Jackie again. "We're really doing this, huh?"_

_"Dunno." Jackie shrugged, then fell into a giggle. "I have no idea why I'm laughing." _

_She knew as well as he did that she always laughed when she was uncomfortable or nervous._

_Her knees swayed back and forth from her alcohol-induced loss of balance and she tightened her grip around his neck. "Why? You still want to?"_

_He was backing out, she could feel it. Part of her felt relief, but an even bigger part nursed the sting of disappointment._

_Hyde wrapped his arms around her waist to steady her. "Do you?"_

_She wished he would just lower the boom already. Why she thought this would be a good idea, she had no idea. It was quickly turning into an exercise in masochism. _

_"I asked you first," Jackie whispered, followed by another round of involuntary giggles._

_"I'm pretty sure that isn't true."_

_"Just say it..." Pulling the glasses from Hyde's face, she placed them down on the ground next to him, then ran her fingers down the sides of his face and gently kissed his lips, as though they might shatter from too much pressure. "It's okay if you don't, Steven. I'm kind of used to it by now." _

_She wouldn't show weakness. Not this time._

_The smile dropped from his face. "I'm sorry."_

_ Breezy. Breezy. Breezy. She told herself she didn't care._

_"I know." Jackie shrugged again, not knowing what else to say. "I didn't really think you were going to go through with it anyway. So...no hard feelings."_

_Hyde flinched at her words and racked her body against his, as if to wake her out of her stupor. "No, dummy. I meant I'm sorry I didn't ask you to marry me two years ago."_

_Her eyes widened in shock and she could feel her knees beginning to give out. "Oh."_

_Jackie's knees collapsed, but he held her tightly against his frame, keeping her from dropping. "So? We really doing this?"_

_She looked over at the sales clerk and cleared her throat. "Excuse me, ma'am. Do you have any men's wedding band's with big, ugly skulls on them?"_

* * *

**The present.**

Jackie and Hyde tried hard not to look at each other as Donna approached them.

"What? You have nothing to say?" Donna closed in on the couple as though she were herding sheep.

"Your hair look surprisingly nice?" Jackie calmly smiled at her old roommate.

Donna stood directly in front of the smaller woman and stared her down, to no avail. "Tell me I'm wrong."

"You're wrong." Jackie crossed her arms over her chest in a defensive stance.

_I'm not technically lying. There are many things Donna is wrong about. Her ability to wear high-waisted jeans, for example... _

Realizing that questioning Jackie would be a dead end, Donna instead shifted focus to the man standing next to her. She did nothing but slowly tap her foot and watch him squirm.

After a few, excruciatingly long moments, Hyde shifted his weight to his other foot and then crumbled under his friend's hot glare. "Fine. We're married. Whatever."

"Steven!" Jackie hissed loudly.

He threw his shoulders in the air. "What? You saw how she was grilling me."

"You always were the worst liar." She tried her best, but couldn't hold back the sneer that was forming on her lips.

_Stupid Steven! Now that people know, we're pretty much doomed. We may as well pack it in, because everybody's going to come down on us like a tidal wave. None of our 'friends' ever wanted us together. Not one._

_Well, there was one..._

Though he was in love with her at the time, the only one who ever fought for Jackie and Hyde to stay together was Kelso, and he was also inadvertently their undoing.

Jackie hated irony.

_Like I need the universe laughing at me, too._

Hyde shot her an irritated look, bent over and snagged his glasses from the floor, then slid them quickly back onto his nose in one fluid motion. "That's usually not considered a bad quality, princess."

"I knew it!" Donna held a long finger up and wagged it in both of their faces. "Ugh. 12 hours in a car riding next to Eric after his mother's chilli and now I have to deal with this?"

"Wow. Poor you." Jackie voiced her displeasure with a grunt and turned away from them both.

_Why does she always have to stick her nose in where it doesn't belong? What business is it of hers anyway? She didn't seem to care when he married Sam last year and that whore was a total stranger! Or is it just that he married me this time, that it bothers her?_

"So you really did it then?" Donna's brow furrowed in disbelief and she looked toward Hyde for an explanation. "Did she get you drunk or something?"

Jackie scowled and turned her head back in Donna's direction. She was done taking this bullshit in silence. "You think I have to get a guy drunk to marry me? I'm not the one who's been abandoned twice at the altar."

Donna's jaw dropped in shock.

_Okay, maybe that was a low blow..._

"Technically, the second time was just a broken engagement." Hyde piped in unhelpfully, earning a glare from both women.

"I'm not saying a_ normal_ guy would have to get drunk to marry you, Jackie," Donna said in a calmer voice, before her focus returned to Hyde. "I'm just saying that _this_ one would."

Jackie bit her lip in an attempt to keep from showing emotion. If she were alone right now, she'd be rocking in the corner with a box of tissues by now, listening to a Linda Rondstat LP.

"What are you trying to say? That he couldn't possibly want to spend his life with me unless I got him wasted first?" Her voice broke at the end of the sentence and she cursed herself for appearing so weak. She'd sworn to herself that she'd never let anybody she knew see her like that again, especially after the night she accidentally flashed her tits to a bar full of strange guys.

"Well...he does have a history of getting hitched in Vegas while drunk..." Donna's eyes softened as she tried to shift the blame to Hyde. "That's kind of his thing, Jackie."

Jackie nodded her head and tried to keep the tears at bay that were threatening her eyes. "Yeah. I know that, Donna. I lived through the first one, too."

Hyde reached for Jackie's hand, but before he could grasp it she pulled away.

_God. I knew this was a mistake, but it really took seeing it from the Big Red Whore's perspective for me to truly get it._

Donna bisected her hair and began braiding the left half as she spoke, carefully smoothing out the kinks caused by her automotive slumber. "Look, I'm not trying to be a bitch here, but somebody needs to say it."

"Nobody asked you," Hyde sneered. "I had this covered before you went and opened your big trap."

"No. You were too chicken to tell Sam to leave last time, when we all knew you wanted to." She glanced up at him before searching around in her skirt pocket for an elastic band. "I'd be a bad friend if I let you do that to yourself again."

Jackie exhaled a puff of laughter. "Well, we wouldn't want you to be a bad friend."

Donna's forehead wrinkled in confusion. "What's that supposed to mean?"

She shook her head at the question. She wasn't about to explain what she really meant by it. "Forget it."

_She'll either get it or she won't...and if she doesn't, then it's not worth explaining._

Hyde pulled his glasses from his face again and glowered. "Will you just shut up already, Donna? You're not helping."

Jackie noticed desperation in Hyde's voice and it tugged at her heart.

"What?" Donna threw her hands in the air, essentially giving up the fight. "You want to keep making the same mistakes over and over again, be my guest."

_I've got to get out of here._

"It wasn't a mistake." Hyde twirled the skull ring on his left hand with his thumb.

Jackie's heart lurched at his admission.

_He just said that out loud! To another person!_

"Of course it was!" Donna groaned again and started braiding the right side of her hair. "You got drunk and married Jackie, you dillhole!"

Hyde's jaw tensed as he absorbed his friend's angry rant.

"I'm not going to stand by and let you break her heart again, man." Donna secured the second rubber band on the end of her braid with a snap and took a threatening step closer to Hyde. "I – I didn't do the right thing last time. I should have said something but I didn't, and what you did fucked her up." She waved her hand in Jackie's vicinity as though she weren't there.

_Is this actual remorse? I feel like I must be hallucinating this._

"I'm telling you, it wasn't a mistake." Hyde kept his eyes on the floor but his voice was steady and firm.

Donna cocked her head to the side to get a better look at his down-turned face. "You're saying she planned this?"

"Hello? I'm still in the room, in case you forgot." Jackie threw her arms up in the air and then crossed them in anger, but neither of her friends looked her way.

"No." Hyde's head remained down, but his eyes flicked up to meet Donna's. "I'm saying that I did...kinda."

His admission made Donna blanch. "You're saying you actually came here to get her drunk and trick her into marrying you?"

"No. I came here to get her back." Hyde tilted his head to the side and Jackie could feel him watching her in his peripheral vision. "The marriage thing, that was just a drunken clusterfuck."

"Jesus..." Donna grabbed the ends of her braids and pulled nervously at them in thought. "You guys can get it annulled," she informed him, then smiled sheepishly in Jackie's direction. "Sorry."

_No you're not._

Hyde crossed his arms over his chest defiantly. "What if I don't wanna?"

Donna's grew large. "You actually want to stay married? To Jackie?"

He nodded his head silently, still looking toward the floor, then hooked his thumb in the direction of his new bride. "She's the one who wants to bail."

_That's not...I don't know what I want, anymore._

"Is that true, Jackie?" Jackie confirmed it with a shrug, and Donna's face flushed pink with embarrassment. "I...shit. Guess I really put my foot in it this time, huh? Man, I'm really so-"

"I'm going to go get some air." Jackie cut her off. She felt like the room was closing in on her and she couldn't breathe, so she turned to the door.

Hyde tried to follow. "I'll go with you."

She held her hand out to stop him. "I just need some time to myself, okay?"

He reluctantly gestured toward the door. "I guess I'll see you when I see you, then."

Jackie closed the door behind her and leaned against it to catch her breath. The past 24 hours were strange, but the last 5 minutes had been the most uncomfortable of her life, and that included being seen on the dance floor with Michael by the entire school population during Homecoming.

_That reminds me, I'll need to come up with my excuses now in case he asks me to dance at Fez's reception. My shoes are too expensive and pretty to risk their lives._

The sound of shouting from inside the door momentarily pulled her out of her reverie.

"What part of _you broke her_, don't you get, Hyde?" Donna yelled angrily as something loud crashed to the floor. "You know what getting married means to her, and you did it with some other girl, just to be pissy."

"I said I was wrong! What more do you want from me? I don't own a fucking time machine!"

There was a break in the conversation before Donna spoke up again. " You know, you freak out and do something insanely stupid every time you guys have a fight, and it isn't fair to her. You know how her family is. She needs stability, not to be jerked around every time your ego gets wounded."

_Huh. I didn't even think she noticed._

Hyde balked. "Sounds like you're really enjoying those psych courses at Madison State."

Jackie turned around and pulled the door open a fraction of an inch to watch the fireworks, but found herself straining to hear their voices now.

"Look, I know you're a good guy, deep down, but maybe you guys just aren't right for each other?"

Hyde laughed bitterly. "I'm not gonna explain what's between us to you."

_Can you please explain it to me?_

"It doesn't matter, I can't let you dick her around again. You're one of my best friends, but she is too." Donna spoke to him in same the dulcet tone she used to use with Betsy.

_I am? _

Jackie had given up on that friendship months ago...or rather, Donna had. While Jackie would always care about Donna, she had assumed their days of sleepovers and late-night rap sessions was in their distant past.

"Hey, how convenient for you to remember that now!" Hyde looked despondent, and ran a hand over his mouth a few times.

Donna leaned over to right the suitcase she'd obviously kicked over in anger. "Yeah, well...so we both made mistakes with her. The difference is, I'm not going to repeat mine."

"That was kind of my plan, too," he croaked from under the hand which shielded the lower half of his face.

Jackie nearly fell through the door at his response.

_He really meant what he said. He must have, because he just said it again to Donna, and he has no reason to lie to her when I'm not even there to hear it._

Donna walked across the room and rested a hand on Hyde's shoulder. "You're really serious about this, huh?" He shrugged and she reacted by laughing. "I would avoid doing that if she asks you what I just did. You know how much Jackie loves it when you answer her questions with a shrug."

"What do you want me to say?" His voice sounded raw and forlorn, and Jackie held herself back from bursting into the room to comfort him.

"You're probably the smartest guy I know, Hyde." Donna pressured him with the weight of her stare. "I'm sure you can figure it out what you could say to give me peace of mind. It's probably the same thing that she wants to hear, so you'd better get some practice in if you're really going to go through with this."

Hyde took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I already told her, okay?"

Donna looked uncertain. "Explicitly?"

"Yeah, explicitly," he grumbled irritably and scratched his head. "And then I showed her _explicitly_ about a half dozen times."

A smile cracked Donna's face. "You looooove Jackie! You totally and completely looooove her."

Per usual, Hyde seemed to be trying his hardest not to respond, but a hint of a smile graced his lips and he good-naturedly shrugged. "Whatever."

* * *

As she heard the duo approaching the exit, Jackie ran into the nearby bathroom and hid behind the door. She glanced in the mirror, composed herself, and then strolled out of the rest room looking like she didn't have a care in the world.

Hyde was leaning against the wall waiting for her when she made her 'reappearance'. Through the slightly open door, she noticed that Donna was still in the room, fiddling with her suitcase.

"Hey." Jackie swung her purse back and forth aimlessly as she closed the distance between them.

"Hey, yourself." She entered his personal space, and Hyde placed his hands on her hips, his fingers lightly resting over the tiny constellation of bruises they had formed that morning in the shower.

"So...do you want me to wait here while you go use the bathroom?" He raised an eyebrow.

Jackie cursed him silently for knowing her so well. "Steven, I just came from the bathroom."

He pursed his lips and held in a snicker. "Do you want me to wait or what?"

She gave up the act. "Fine. I didn't really have to go, but I still don't."

His arm slid around her waist and tried to guide her toward the service exit.

"Where are we going?" She was vaguely alarmed.

"It's a surprise."

"But what about-?" She pointed to the dining room.

"They'll live."

Jackie smiled at his take charge demeanor. It was one of the things she loved best about him.

He spontaneously kissed her on the cheek and she turned to connect their lips briefly. "Big Red's gonna run some interference for us. Besides, we're way more fun that the rest of those yahoos. We don't need them stealing our mojo."

Jackie looked at him skeptically. "You just love making up words, don't you?"

"It's real."

She rolled her eyes. "Sure it is, Steven."

He stopped and placed his hand over her heart. "It's kind of like...your power...your unique...thing that other people are attracted to."

She gazed adoringly at him. His whole 'zen thing' always made her hot, even if it was just too crazy for words.

"My thing?" Jackie's eyes dropped to his hand, which lingered dangerously close to her breast.

Hyde bit his bottom lip in amusement before responding. "More like your essence, Jackie. Your thing is pretty fucking sexy too, though." His hand migrated over to cup her breast.

"You think Forman, Fez and Kelso want to steal your essence?" Jackie tried and failed to keep from laughing in his face. "That sounds a little sexual, no?

"No!" He scowled at her and placed his free hand on her other breast. "Anyway, the jury's out on Forman, but I know Fez and Kelso want to steal my essence. I mean, it got you here, right?"

She gave him a lopsided smile and brought his hands back down to her hips. "I don't know what you're talking about. What got me here is all that Grooves money."

He looked contemplative. "Interesting, because you weren't screaming Ben Franklin's name last night while I fucked you."

Jackie's eyes narrowed with irritation, prompting him to exhale his fatigue. He followed it up with an eye roll.

"You weren't screaming Ben Franklin's name when I..._made love _to you." Hyde looked like he'd eaten a bad nut, but she kissed the unhappy expression away.

"That sounded better."

"According to you."

"Is there some other woman you're trying to woo right now?"

The bad nut look was back. "Seriously, you got me to say 'make love', Jackie. If I cave to 'woo', I may as well just hand you my nuts and walk away."

Jackie pressed herself tightly against his front. "I like your nuts exactly where they are."

"Good. 'Cause we're about to use 'em." Hyde curved his arm around her waist and pulled her toward the emergency staircase. "You up for a game of chance Mrs. Hyde?"

"Haven't we been playing one this whole weekend?" She arched a brow at him.

* * *

Lights blinked and whirled in all colors of the rainbow in a dizzying display that was only made worse by the pings and dings of the various slot machines lining the floor of their hotel's tacky casino.

Like a mule, Jackie refused to budge past the brown, low-pile carpet onto the Italian marble path. "Did we smoke something before we got here?"

"Trippy, right? Hold onto to my hand and ride it out, baby." Hyde tried to get her to move but she continued to resist.

Two women in low cut, shiny dresses with sleazy-looking dates brushed past Jackie, knocking her into Hyde's side.

_Were those hookers? I honestly can't tell in this town._

"How did you even notice Sam with all of this...tackiness around? She didn't just blend in?"

_Did I just say that out loud? Oops._

He dropped his head back and took a cleansing breath. "We're back to this?"

She wished it didn't matter to her, but every time she saw a young, generic blonde in a slutty dress, it was all she could do not to bolt from the hotel in anger.

"Maybe we should go back to the party?" Jackie whispered, almost to herself, as she eyed the emergency exit door. "They're probably wondering where we are."

"No. I'm going to show you a good time if it kills me." Resolve was written across his strong features as he reached for her hand. "And it might."

This was certainly a new Steven. She had never seen him care so much about doing anything before. She used to admire his laid back, devil-may-care attitude, until she realized it wasn't because he was laid back at all, but because he was too scared to try.

_He's trying now._

"You really think it'll kill you?" Despite her better judgement, she took his hand. "How do you want to crap out? Snake-eye bite? Russian roulette?"

"Nope." He backed her up against a column and wrapped his arms around her waist. "Texas Hold 'em."

_Why can't it be like this all the time? Why does reality always have to come back and slap me in the face whenever I start to get comfortable?_

Hyde pressed his pelvis into her and dragged his lips against hers in a teasing swipe. "Come on. Time's a-wastin'." He pulled her purposefully in the direction of the Roulette table on the opposite side of their hotel casino.

"Where are you taking me?"

"You can't ever let stuff happen, can you? Always gotta be driving the car." He shook his head without looking at her or slowing his speed.

A plume of cigarette smoke wafted past their heads and Jackie slowed down to cough. "Are you calling me a control freak?"

"No on the freak. Hell yeah on the control part." He stopped to think for a moment. "More like a control midget."

Jackie barely had time to fake affront before Hyde had taken off again, pulling her along with him.

"Where's the fire?" she panted, trying to keep the pace.

"Uh...you might not want to say that out loud, You know, after...what happened." He squeezed her hand tighter and continued to power walk.

_Shit. I'd totally forgotten about that horrible MGM fire. Great. Now everybody in the casino probably thinks I'm a callus bitch._

Jackie yanked her hand out of his and stopped to catch her breath. "My legs are half the size of yours and I'm wearing heels. Aren't they pretty?" She bent her knee and showed him her gold stilettos. "Plus, it's kind of hard to walk when you have one foot in your mouth."

Hyde grinned at her with pride and her skin flushed without her permission.

"What?" she asked defensively, looking around her. "Like, 100 people died in it or something, of course I care. I'm not a monster."

_Does he really think of me this way?_

"I didn't mean...I just meant...it's cool that you give a shit."

She wasn't sure whether he should be more offended that he underestimated her capacity for empathy or that he overestimated her ability to turn a blind eye to tragic events.

"Okay..." Jackie walked past him toward the nearest bar on the casino floor.

Hyde groaned and ran after her. "Why do you always have to overreact about everything?"

_I am so sick of men saying this every time they screw up and a women gets mad about it! He implies something rude, but I'm the 'hysterical female' for getting offended?_

She stopped walking and turned to him. "Ever think that maybe _you _ are the one with the inappropriate reactions?"

"Huh?"

"You give me a condescending pat on the back for caring about something any normal human being should? That's not an overreaction?"

Her legs started up again, but he grabbed her arm. "Stop."

Jackie heeded his plea and slowed her gait.

"Look doll, I don't think you're a monster. Never did." She angled her head to look at him. "I shoulda just said that I think it's cool you're _admitting_ to giving a shit, because you didn't always." Hyde played with the fingers on her left hand. "I wouldn't even be here if you were the kind of chick who didn't care at all. Okay?"

Jackie beamed, despite her attempt to resist his compliment. "Okay."

"Okay." He leaned in and kissed her. "Now what do you say we let these suckers buy us a drink? We've got 15 minutes until we gotta be somewhere, but I'm feeling lucky."

"Oh you are, are you?" She pursed her lips seductively.

"Yeah, that too." He led her over to the nearest gambling table and plunked down a medium-sized pile of coins. "Ladies choice."

Jackie was truly shocked at his pick of game. "Steven, I didn't realize you knew how to play Roulette."

"I don't, but it looks boss when James Bond does it." He motioned for the nearest waitress.

A cocktail waitress in a revealing black dress approached the couple. "What can I get for you?"

"My _wife _is gonna have something fruity. With vodka."

_'My wife'? And now and he's ordering for me? Seriously, 'Twilight Zone', your half hour is up._

Jackie's brow creased.

"You were going to order something else?" A self-satisfied mien graced his face.

She exhaled and grumbled her answer. "No."

_Fine. So, he knows what I like, so does the bartender at the Point Place Tavern._

"What? You always pretended to like that macho shit, Jackie."

"Well, I don't anymore." She worried her bottom lip.

"Fine by me. I just hadn't realized you started hanging out with Donna so much again." She gasped at his Donna-bashing and shoulder checked him lightly.

"And what can I get for you, sir?" the waitress asked, interrupting their banter.

Jackie jumped in before Hyde could speak. "HE will have whatever you have on tap, from the farthest country you import beer from."

_It's the 80's now. I'd better start acting like it._

"Sure thing." The waitress smiled and took off with their order.

"Easy guess." Hyde laced their hands together and brought the back of her hand to his lips. "Pretty clever, though. They have to bring us anything we want for free while we gamble, so we may as well milk 'the man' for all he's worth. I wouldn't have thought about the imported part."

"That's what I'm here for." She winked. "I excel at excess."

The table master called for all bets to be placed and Hyde pushed the pile of chips in Jackie direction. "You pick."

"Steven, there's like, a hundred bucks there!" she whispered harshly in his ear.

He shrugged. "I trust you."

_You trust me? Since when?_

The pit of Jackie's stomach festered with nerves. What if she lost all of his money? Would he be mad at her?

"I...I don't know." She peered at the complicated table with a pinched expression.

"Well, which color do you like better, red or black?"

With a look of pity, she cupped Hyde's face. "Oh Steven, black isn't a color, it's a shade."

"Okay...so red then?"

She nodded.

"But which number?" Jackie watched the table master collect the bets from the people at the other side of the table.

"Easy. 30." Hyde flagged down the dealer.

"Why 30?"

"Yesterday was the 30th. I figured it might be good luck or whatever. You can pick a different number if you want." He lifted and dropped the pile of chips rhythmically, over and over again as he actively avoided her gaze.

_Oh my God. He never even remembered our anniversary when we actually were together. Now he's suddenly Ward Cleaver? _

"Let's go with 30 on red." She shoved the heap of chips toward the dealer and he placed their bet on the table.

_This is turning me on an embarrassing amount. __If he could read my thoughts he'd be laughing his ass off._

Relief radiated off of Hyde as she reached for his hand with both of hers. "Are you nervous? I'm nervous."

_God, I hope my hand isn't 'glowing'._

"Nope." He smirked as she gripped his hand harder. "We've got a sure thing, baby."

_We do?_

Jackie's pulse started to race and she wondered if it was from nerves or from realization.

"Last call!" The dealer shouted.

The table was so littered with other patron's bets that she could barely see their chips amongst the sea of plastic.

Hyde leaned in closer to the table and butterflies took flight in her stomach. The musky scent of his skin infiltrated her airspace, weighing down her lungs with each breath she took. "You're making it pretty hard to hold a grudge, you know."

He turned his head and stole a kiss. "That's kind of what I was going for."

"No more bets, please!" The dealer called out and spun the wheel.

"Where do we have to be in 15 minutes, Steven?" Jackie gave Hyde her best coquette performance, complete with batted eyelashes and coy smile. It almost never failed.

"Bagpipe festival."

_Almost._

Jackie tugged on his arm. "Shut up! Come on. You know you want to tell me..." Her voice was a song that grew breathier the closer she drew to him.

"Yeah, I really don't." Hyde chuckled sadistically in her face.

"I hate you. Have I mentioned that?" Her face was so close to his that she could almost taste his lips.

"Yeah, but I don't care. You can say whatever you want, but...I still love you." His voice was low, and she could feel it rumble in her bones.

_Just say it! You know you want to. Stop torturing the poor guy and just tell him what he wants to hear!_

Jackie swallowed thickly and parted her lips to speak. "I - I still-"

"Red 30!" The dealer announced, to the applause of the crowd.

Hyde smiled and raised a finger in the air. "We're 'Red 30'."

* * *

**A/N - So, what did you think? There is more to come, as I'm still planning on this being around 10 chapters. You'll see the gang again sometime soon, since Fez's wedding is later in the evening. Are you still having fun? What did you think? If you have the time and the energy, please REVIEW! Those alerts really brighten my day.**

**Also, I want to send a special thanks to all who have marked this story as a 'favorite'. You guys are awesome :)**


	6. Don't Be Shy

**A/N - Hey guys, welcome back. I never know how to time these chapter updates in the T70S fandom. The readership seems to come in waves. I want to give everybody a chance to catch up before the next post, but I don't want the early birds to have to wait forever for their next update. What to do...what to do...**

**Anyway, here's a monster-sized chapter. Channeling the movie "Before Sunrise" a little (yes, I'm THAT old). Hopefully it will give you plenty of fodder for the reviews I'm (not so) silently begging for you to leave.**

* * *

**CHAPTER 6**

* * *

_**Last night.**_

"_Come on. Don't be such a dork!" Using a half-empty bottle of champagne as a dance partner, Jackie twirled herself in the middle of the waiting room of the 'Love Me Tonight Wedding Chapel' to the strains of the song 'Help Yourself', by Tom Jones. With arms akimbo, she nearly knocked over another bride-to-be during her second go-around, stumbling for a moment before regaining her balance. "...and she stuck the landing! Judges give Jackie Burkhart a 9.3...You know, except for those bitches from East Germany. They only gave me a 9." She pretended to pout._

_Unable to stop laughing, Hyde reached his hand out to steady her, but she slipped through his fingers. His eyes shifted around the room with embarrassment, taking in several irritated stares from other couples. "Maybe you should hand me the bottle, babe?"_

_She took another swig and dramatically wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. "I will if you dance with me."_

"_All they play here is Tom Jones." He wore his revulsion like a badge of honor. "And I don't dance. Especially not to that crap."_

_The Tom Jones impersonator nee' minister frowned as he waved the next couple inside his chamber and shut the door tightly behind them._

_Jackie pulled a face. "I distinctly remember you saying something once about how you could make anything look cool."_

_Hyde groaned and let his head drop into his hands. "Guess you wouldn't be you, if you didn't go for the jugular."_

"_What?" Her jerky hand movement splashed the well-worn indigo carpet with bubbly. "It's my wedding day. What bride doesn't deserve at least one dance on her wedding day?" She made eye contact with an older groom, dressed in a cheap suit, who had the misfortune of leaning against a nearby wall. "I'm beautiful! I deserve at LEAST two dances. Dontcha think?"_

_He looked up at her with a startled expression. "Uh...yes?"_

_Jackie aimed her hot glare back at Hyde again. "See? Even HE thinks I deserve a dance, and he's dressed like a snake oil salesman." The now dejected-looking man took a seat next to his bride to be, who cut him a derisive look. _

"_I told you that suit was tacky, Jerry," the man's bride hissed._

_Jackie continued to point at the poor guy."What more proof do you need, Steven? Jerry-in-the-tacky-suit agrees with me, Steven. I want my dances, Steven...all seven of them."_

"_Seven?" Hyde lifted his head and chuckled. "You're drunker than I thought...if that's possible."_

"_Come on!" Jackie's pouty bottom lip slipped out of her mouth. True to habit, she lowered her chin to maximize her look of vulnerability. Even drunk, she had the act down pat._

_He clenched his jaw and stared her down, but she wasn't about to give up. It was her wedding day, and a girl only gets a first wedding once._

"_Just dance with her, will ya?" The truck-stop blonde behind the counter huffed angrily. _

"_See? Even old people want to see you dance with me." Jackie pointed to the sneering woman as further proof of her righteousness. Undeterred, she continued with the 'puppy dog look' approach."Pleeeeease..."_

_She could see his resolve crumbling and victory was within her sight._

"_Just do it, already!" yelled a middle aged Chinese woman with a thick accent, wearing a cowboy hat._

_To the untrained eye, Hyde looked pissed, but Jackie could see the mirth behind his eyes. _

_He was enjoying this. He missed it. It was why he came to Vegas in the first place._

"_Fine." He hopped up from his chair to the sound of cheering and light applause, then grabbed the bottle of champagne from Jackie's hand - stopping only to place it down on the floor next to them - before embracing her. He pulled her light frame against his larger one and wrapped an arm around her waist as the other grappled clumsily for her hand. "You're such a pain in the ass."_

"_Indubitably." Jackie expelled a satisfied sigh and smiled against his chest as they slowly rocked. "I'm totally worth the trouble though."_

_He kissed the top of her head and pulled her closer. "Indubitably."_

* * *

**Present.**

Hotel casinos made it a point to disorient their clientele by giving them day/night confusion. A lack of clocks and windows, coupled with a careful arrangement of uniform lighting and an endless supply of free booze, were designed to easily push people into that condition within a few hours. After a few days on the inside, it might be almost impossible to tell what time, or sometimes, even what day it was.

People in this suspended state could be susceptible to temptation. They would often find themselves doing things they wouldn't ordinarily do, like missing appointments, taking unusual risks, and making massive errors in judgment.

_Or in my case, they do all three._

Strobe lights whirled above the roulette wheel against a police siren soundtrack, as a crowd of people began to collect around Jackie and Hyde out of curiosity.

The dealer leaned over to talk to Jackie, completely ignoring Hyde's presence. "My floor manager needs to validate all wins over a certain amount. Would you mind waiting a few minutes, sugar?"

"Of course not," she said numbly, not really understanding what the question she was answering meant.

"Thanks, beautiful." The dealer leveled fake 'gun hands' at her before returning to his station.

_Why are people in Vegas so cheesy?_

Jackie swallowed her thinly veiled disgust at the hand gesture. "Did we just-?"

"Yeah. I, uh, think we did." Hyde looked around the room anxiously, his body alive with an edginess Jackie had only seen him exhibit when they'd walked through bad parts of town.

Realization hit, and her eyes widened. "Oh my God! Steven, we won! And not just a little!"

Jackie threw her arms around his neck with the excitement of a school girl.

"Yep."

He tried to remain cool, but she could see right through him.

_We won? I've never won anything this big before! Is it even a big win? It must be, or why would they bother with all the hoopla, right?_

Jackie noticed Hyde tense beneath her grasp and she pulled back to look at him. The unwanted attention was stressing him out.

Most of their friends thought he hung out in the back rooms at parties smoking pot because he hated looking at other people. That was partially true. He was a misanthropist by nature, but he mostly hid out because he hated them looking at him. It made him feel too conspicuous, like he was being judged.

When they were dating, he always held Jackie on his lap. He said it made him feel more settled, something about the weight of her feeling good on his lap, but she knew it was more than that. As long as she was there with him, he felt grounded. He did irrational things when he was left to float, and since she liked the responsibility of making him feel safe, it was mutually beneficial. Having somebody to care for was a good thing. So was getting cared for back. And people thought they were just horny teenagers, out to cop a feel.

Hyde told her once when they were drunk that his life at home was always easier when Edna didn't realize he was there. Showing his face only made him more of a target.

_Funny how his mom was too drunk to tolerate him and my mom was too drunk to notice me. Maybe we would have been happier the other way around?_

_Yeah. Probably not._

The strobe light assaulted her eyeballs like an ice pick, and she had to look away before the inevitable nausea set in.

"That siren giving you flashbacks, Clyde?" Jackie quipped out of the side of her mouth as she buried her face into her hand.

"Ha. Ha." Hyde worked his jaw and tightened his grip on her free hand, before pulling her from her chair, across the gap between them and onto his lap. He brought his lips to her ear and whispered. "Gotta learn to hide your weed better, little girl. I ain't taking the rap for you this time."

She craned her neck to look at him, shielding both their faces with her hand. "You _so_ would and you know it."

"Only if you promised conjugal visits." He waggled his eyebrows and took a quick nibble on the side of her neck.

The number of people gathering at the table was growing with each passing second, pulling them both from their cocoon of lust. With its giant wheel, Roulette was always a showman's game. Even when the win wasn't very big, the reaction always was.

Jackie's head dizzied with excitement and she wondered just how big their win had been. She knew nothing about roulette, other than it was the spinning thing with the ball. "Steven? What were the odds?"

"Of the two of us sticking together?" he joked, laying the charm on thick. "I'd say dead even at the moment."

She groaned and shook her head.

He wrapped his arms around her waist tightly and pressed his lips into the back of her neck. "35:1."

She twisted to face him. "Come again?"

Though shrinking beneath Jackie's curtain of hair, a confident smirk tugged at his lips. "You heard me."

"You put in $100, Steven." Math was never her strongest subject, but she could easily multiply that round number.

_Holy shit. $3500? That's rent for three years! He could even buy a slightly used Camaro for that kind of cash._

"Jackie, we put in $125." His eyes bulged with a child-like excitement that she'd never seen him display in a room filled with strangers before.

Hyde was always weird about money. He used to make fun of her endlessly because of her shopping habit. He said she was 'part of the problem', and called her disparaging names like 'gullible consumer' and 'avaricious sheep'.

It always used to annoy her how much he teased her about her love of material things. She grew up rich with two shallow parents. It was how her parents displayed affection. It was how she measured her own worth, how she was taught to judge others'. It was all she knew.

In the beginning of her relationship with Steven, Jackie expected him to be like Michael. She wanted him to prove his love for her through a steady stream of presents and expensive gestures. She knew he didn't have the funds, but she figured if he spent everything he did have access to, it would really speak to his love for her.

But then he shaved his beard to cheer her up, and everything she thought she knew flew out the window.

That small act made her feel way more loved than any stupid trinket her parents or Michael had ever gotten for her. He gave her something that cost nothing, but was worth more to her than anything she'd ever had before. After that day, adapting her expectations had been easy.

The trouble was, he never adapted his expectations of her. She would always be a spoiled little rich girl to him, even when she she was flat broke.

_I didn't even tell him when it was my birthday, because I didn't want him to feel obligated to buy me anything. Avaricious, my ass!_

She sucked her bottom lip into her mouth and tried to force the negative thoughts from her head before he could sense them.

The tuxedo-wearing floor manager of the hotel's casino approached the couple with a confident stride. "Congratulations, Mr...?"

"Hyde." Hyde took the man's hand and gave it a shake.

The employee glanced at their entwined hands and took notice of her ring. "And...Mrs. Hyde?"

Jackie opened her mouth to dispute the man's assumption, but was cut off by Hyde. "As of last night."

The floor manager assessed Jackie's beauty, and smiled as though he had a delicious secret. "You've certainly been having quite a run of luck over the past few days. Haven't you, Mr. Hyde?

Hyde's gaze connected with hers. "Can't argue with that."

_Stop thinking about it, Jackie. Maybe he's not so judgmental now? You're not even that girl anymore. Only you can make you feel small._

"Well newlyweds, if you'll permit me, I'd be honored if you'd accept a complimentary upgrade to our bridal suite for the weekend." The man looked at them with a manufactured affection.

"If we permit you?" Jackie spat out. "Of course we permit you!"

_Okay, maybe I'm still a little bit that girl._

She felt Hyde's chest shake with laughter against her back. "You heard her, man. Thanks for the offer."

"Excellent. If you leave your room number with the clerk, we can have the staff move your things for you."

"Thanks very generous." She bestowed on the man one of her megawatt smiles.

"We extend these little courtesies to all of our high rollers." He winked at Jackie. "If you wouldn't mind waiting by the cashier's station while we organize the funds for you, I can have them take care of it right away."

"Thanks, man." Hyde shook the manager's hand. "Any chance you could also get them to kill the siren?" He pointed at the spinning lights. "My hangover is starting to come back full force and it's blinding my girl."

The manager snapped his fingers at the dealer and pointed to the lights, which were cut instantly, along with the siren.

_Oh sweet silence!_

The manager's shiny shoes marched in the direction of the cashier, leaving light footprints in the carpet like arrows on a treasure map.

Hyde raised an eyebrow in her direction as he closely evaluated her. "You're too quiet."

"You never complained about that before."

"Too quiet means you're plotting something. What's going on in that head of yours, Jackie?" Hyde gently smoothed the crease between her eyes with his thumb.

"Just thinking about how I always wanted to marry rich." She closed her eyes in pretend bliss and sighed heavily.

Hyde dug a finger into her ribs and she doubled over with laughter. "Yeah well, hate to break it to you, princess, but you didn't. You married lower middle-class. And five grand doesn't make us rich."

Her eyes grew large. "That's how much money you won?"

"No. That's how much money _we _won," he corrected.

_He doesn't actually think I'd take his money, does he? I'm not my mother._

The smile fell from her lips. "It's a very sweet sentiment, but I don't deserve any of the money. I didn't put any in on the initial bet."

_Am I feeling okay? When have I ever refused money?_

"Yeah, you did. You already own half of all my shit. That includes seed money."

Jackie shook her head vigorously. "Come on, it's five thousand dollars! Don't be crazy. Besides, we haven't even been married for a day, so those laws hardly count, even if you did use it as a reason to steal my toothbrush this morning. Besides, who even knows what's legal after...you know..after the annulment." She mumbled the last part of the sentence.

Resolve burned in Hyde's eyes, making them look bluer than ever before. He ran a hand over his hair in frustration. "Can't you...I don't know...like, take this as a sign or something?"

She looked at him as if he were speaking Chinese. "A sign of what?"

A strangled moan died in the back of his throat as she watched him building up to saying something important. His face was so pained she thought there had to be something very wrong. "You know, that – I don't know – that we're supposed to be together or something?"

_Okay seriously. Where the hell is Rod Sterling hiding? It's like Steven's been body-snatched by Richard Dreyfuss. _

She took his face between her palms and forced him to look at her. "Steven, _you_ don't believe in signs."

"I know that, Jackie." His body was rigid with tension. "But _you _do."

Overcome by the moment, Jackie fought hard to keep herself from being reduced to a quivering pile of jello. "You're..." Her breath caught in her throat. "You're really something else, Steven Hyde."

He bit back a smile. "I really _am _something else."

His expression begged her to believe him. And she was beginning to, despite her better judgment.

The manager waved them over to the counter.

Jackie grabbed onto his arm as they walked. "Tell me something. When we placed the bet, you said we had a sure thing. How on Earth could you have known that?"

The manager nodded toward the gated cashier's window, and Hyde released her arm. As he brushed past her leg on his way to the window, he mumbled to her over his shoulder. "I wasn't talking about the bet, Jackie."

* * *

A pair of blonde, seven year old twins stood quietly behind Jackie on line at the ice cream shop, admiring her shoes.

"Those are pretty," one of the girls said.

The other one's nose wrinkled as she bent over and examined the heel. "They look like they hurt."

"Oh, they do, but they're worth it, right?" She extended her toned leg for the girls to get a closer look at her shimmery, stiletto sandals.

The first twin's eyes lit up at the sight. "Totally."

"How do you walk in those without falling?" the second twin asked, while still looking perplexed.

"You get used to it." Jackie lifted her heel to see what the girl was looking at and shrugged. "You fall down sometimes, but if you do it with flair, people barely even notice."

She could feel him watching her.

"Flair?" He ran his hand over his stubble.

She straightened her spine and affected a haughty air. "Maybe you're just too common to recognize flair when you see it?"

"I wish you'd woulda wiped out 'with flair' that day you wore your bikini in the Forman's driveway with those heels."

A deep frown appeared. "That's a pretty obnoxious thing to say. You want me to hurt myself?"

"You looked ridiculously hot that day. It would have been easier to be around you if you'd done something stupid." He wet his lips and she could feel that tingling feelings starting to return to her gut.

Her mind drifted back to that morning and all of the painful ones that came after it. "I did plenty of stupid stuff that Summer, certainly enough to push you into the arms of that Raquel chick you were making love to on and off for weeks..."

"I didn't 'make love' to Raquel," he said, using air quotes.

Rolling her eyes, she leaned on the edge of the counter to take some of the weight off of her feet. "Fine. 'Screwed' Raquel."

"I didn't screw Raquel."

Jackie let out an exasperated groan. "Do I need to break out the Thesaurus?"

"Jackie, I'm not playin' with semantics here." Hyde's face scrunched up in frustration, and he switched to illustrating his point by forming his hand into a bouncing word ball. "I. Did. Not. Screw. Raquel. Get it now?"

_He didn't have sex with Raquel? What the hell? Why did he let me think he did?_

"But you -"

"I just wanted to make you feel like crap. Because of that thing with Kelso."

Jackie nodded blindly in understanding, but was too untethered to process what he'd said. She wasn't sure if she was more relieved or angered by the news.

"Well...mission accomplished," she said, punctuating her thought with a stiff frog to his arm.

_Fuck relief. As always, anger wins out._

Using short, quick strokes, Hyde rubbed where she had connected with his bicep to avoid a bruise.

"Why would you tell me that?" Her voice came out smaller than she had intended.

Jackie wasted so much energy and time feeling insecure about Raquel. She contemplated various piercings and tattoos to impress Hyde to show him she was cooler than he thought. She'd wondered what was she was deficient in or what she had too much of that drove him away. She'd thrown herself at him shamelessly, made her self sick over the specter of Hyde and Raquel together in public and basically driven herself quietly insane over it.

And the entire time, he hadn't even closed the deal.

_I put myself through all of that over a bunch of bullshit. He didn't even screw her. We could have been together if he wasn't so proud, but it was more important to him to punish me than to be with me. How can he expect me to trust anything he says now when he could lie about something like that?_

"I figured you'd be happy about it." His hand slowed to a stop. "Guess I miscalculated."

"You know, you do these...asinine things on a whim, just to hurt me, and-" Her chest rose and fell in faster succession and she brought her hand to her now-aching head. "Look, just forget it."

"Yeah, that's likely." Hyde gave the girls behind them their spot on line to buy more time. "I don't get why this is getting you all pinched up. It's ancient history."

"I don't care about Raquel. I barely remember what she looked like..."

_Blonde, busty, basically everything I'm not..._

_Totally his type._

"Then what's the big deal?"

"I don't think you know how to forgive people, Steven," she spoke cautiously, unable to look him in the eye. "And I'm positive you don't know how to trust them."

She could sense his hackles rising, so she waited patiently for the coming tide to thrash her against the rocks as it always did when she'd struck a nerve.

Instead of barking at her and storming off, he simply stared at the floor, focusing all of his energy on his boots. "You got all of that from me not banging Raquel, huh?"

"No. I'd just been too busy confusing my orgasms for genuine affection until now."

He flipped his brown, leather wallet open and closed, letting the billfold slap repeatedly against the back of his hand with a thwack. "What do you want me to say?"

_Having this conversation while going for ice cream is like listening to your parents argue while petting your cat. It taints the experience. _

"I don't know." Her voice was barely over a whisper. "I – it wasn't enough last time, just being in love. I know what I need now, and it's not a guy who runs at the first sign of trouble. You always run. And I always chase. And I'm exhausted. I need a guy who sticks around."

"Jackie..." He sounded broken. "You think I don't know how fucked up I am? This isn't news."

"It's not just you, I know I didn't handle things the right way. Everybody's fucked up from something, Steven. Being compatible is just about finding somebody who is fucked up in all the ways that fit well with your own." She bit the inside of her cheek to keep herself from completing the thought, but some things had to be said. "We don't fit."

His face tightened with her last words and she knew they'd wounded him deeply, even if he'd never admit to it.

"You don't think we fit?" She couldn't figure out if the question was meant to be earnest or indignant by his flat tone.

"I can't keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. I can't live like that." She brought her hand to her mouth to keep herself from crying and released a shuddering breath. "You may be afraid to let yourself be truly happy, but I'm not. I want it more than anything."

She could feel his eyes taking her in before they fell back to the floor. "You really believe that exists? True happiness?"

"I have to." A few tears escaped and she quickly brushed them away. "Otherwise, what's the whole point?"

"Can I help you, sir?"

They were both startled from their moment by the shop keeper's voice.

Hyde looked at Jackie and then back at the man. "Do you have Rocky Road?"

She couldn't help but laugh at the perfect timing of the joke, which immediately broke the tension between them.

"I do. Will that be one or two?"

"No rocky road for me, thanks. Maybe...cookies-n-cream. That sounds fun. Or no, make that plain chocolate. I want something reliable."

"You could get both." He plunked his wallet down on the counter. "It's not like you couldn't use the padding."

She scowled and swatted his chest in revenge. "What? You're Mister Moneybags now, and suddenly I'm not enough woman?"

He snorted his laughter. "We both know that's not fucking true."

"Now, maybe I _will _get two flavors. Just to bleed you dry of your newfound wealth. Make you appreciate what you have."

Hyde's eyes flicked to hers and she looked away.

_He doesn't have me. Why did I say that? God, this day is so confusing I could cry. And have. Or was that yesterday? Damn these evenly lit rooms!_

"And I'm going to have four toppings." Jackie peered into the display glass and eyed the fog rising off of the frozen, plastic tubs inside. "Or maybe even five." She raised an eyebrow in warning.

Hyde looked down at her through half-lidded eyes. "Let's not go crazy."

_I feel better. The conversation sucked, but I feel so much better having finally gotten all of that out. When your social life is in the toilet, you have plenty of time for introspection. Maybe that's why Steven never thought about all of this before? _

_Or maybe he was too scared to peek behind the curtain._

Suddenly feeling lighter than she had in a long time, Jackie smiled at the shopkeeper. "I'll have a scoop of chocolate and a scoop of the Oreo stuff with chocolate sprinkles, please."

"I'll have what she's having," Hyde added.

She skimmed her humble hips with flattened hands. "Do you really think I'm too skinny? My mother always said I was too fat."

His forehead quirked with loathing and he threw and arm around her waist. "Your mother is a whore. What does she know? I'm sure she didn't think really you were fat, she was probably just so drunk she was seeing two of you. Maybe they overlapped?"

Jackie smiled so hard, her face began to ache.

"Anyway, you know you're gorgeous. It's not like you don't hear it enough from all of those losers down at the tavern."

"How do you know about that?" She regarded him with suspicion.

_He's not following me, is he? That's more creepy than sexy._

As if he could read her mind, he cut off her train of thought.

"Settle down. I'm not stalking you. Guys talk, okay? We live in a small town, it ain't hard to put two and two together." He rapped out a beat with his fingers against the counter top and she tried to work out which Zeppelin song he was drumming out in his head.

_Ah, Kashmir._

"I was there one night and there was a group of guys there, they worked in sales or something. One of 'em started in about a 'fancy-looking', loud-mouth hot chick with dark hair and two different colored eyes who'd stopped by earlier that night. Not too many of those in Point Place." He was lost in thought until his features hardened. "One asshole kept going on and on about your ass."

Hyde abruptly stopped drumming.

"What did you do to him?" Her lips threatened a smile.

He turned slowly to face her, with an air of studied casualness. "What makes you think I did something to him?"

The corners of her mouth climbed the sides of her face. "You couldn't have changed that much in 18 months."

"The mere suggestion of me getting violent over you is getting you horny." He shook his head with disapproval.

She flattened her expression. "No."

_Yeah, it is._

"Of course it is," he said, before turning to address the shopkeeper. "Hey, add a scoop of vanilla to hers, too."

_He is trying to fatten me up! I'm not that skinny!_

"What are you doing?"

"You haven't eaten since last night, and I'm pretty sure all the only solid thing you got down was a couple of those maraschino cherries. We both know that you did not digest those."

Jackie's face flushed fuschia with embarrassment as she remembered her early morning session on the floor of the bathroom. It looked like she had thrown up an entire bar shelf of booze. The entire contents of her stomach had been liquid, save a few perfectly round, red cherries floating helplessly in the bowl, waiting to be flushed into oblivion.

_Please tell me that vague memory of trying to tie a cherry stem into a knot with my teeth was just a hallucination._

Her sense memory kicked in and her insides began to churn. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"They take three years to digest in your stomach, did you know that? Impermeable to stomach acid." He pulled a few bills from his wallet with stiffened fingers and handed them to the old man serving their dessert.

Jackie scrunched up her entire face. "Because stomach acid is exactly what I want to talk about right before we eat."

He looked at her with pity. "You may want to put your head in the sand, but I ain't giving _them _the satisfaction. I'm not entirely convinced those cherries are actual food and not some sort of government experiment to see how long fruit can last in a bomb shelter. You know, for when the 'race war' happens..."

It had been too long since Jackie had been privy to one of Steven's paranoid, political rants. She knew she was supposed to be taking it seriously, but she could help being entertained at the same time.

_He always looks so cute when he gets worked up about something boring. Maybe I should ask him what he thinks about the exploitation of Filipino fruit pickers by Dole? Or I could question the effectiveness of the embargo against Cuba!_

"Maraschino cherries." Hyde grimaced as he rocked backward and forward on the balls of his feet. "Nothing should be that red. It's unnatural."

The old man behind the counter lifted the cherry from the top of the giant waffle cone and tossed it into the nearest garbage can before handing it to Hyde.

Jackie was reduced to a fit of giggles.

* * *

"You never said if you did anything to that guy. You know, the one dishonored me greatly by saying I had a nice ass?" Jackie finished the last bite of her ice cream cone and dusted her hands off.

Hyde opened the door to the ice cream parlor and watched her walk through it. "He wasn't wrong."

Jackie was disappointed he hadn't hurt the guy, even though there was absolutely no reason why he should have. She was nothing to him then. They hadn't been in each other's lives for months, other than group get-togethers and parties. Their association had been tenuous as best.

"True." She pursed her lips in a conscious attempt to look adorable and continued walking. "Why are these casinos so big? We should just join 'Road Runners' and be done with it already."

"Been there." He grabbed her hand and held it against his hip pocket as they walked.

"Yeah, whatever happened with that? You were kind of weird once you got all dried out." She scrunched her nose at the memory of Hyde wearing a sweatband and going for jogs wearing those tiny shorts.

_He looked pretty sexy in those, even if there's no way I'd be seen in public with them. That mustache, however...so glad to see the back of that thing._

He pulled her hand up to his chest and her body followed. "I thought you liked it better when I didn't drink so much?"

"I never minded that you drank, it's just that you never knew when to stop."

He stopped walking with a jolt, the loss of momentum throwing her against his body by the tug of her arm. "I know when it's time to stop."

"Uh-huh."

"You stop when you've run out of beer. Or when you pass out." He grinned at her cheekily. "Whichever comes first."

Jackie tried to imagine what Steven might be like if he were mostly sober and couldn't, which she found a bit disconcerting. "Why do you drink so much anyway?"

Hyde rubbed a hand over his tired-looking face. "We live in Wisconsin."

"Lots of people live in Wisconsin and aren't alcoholics. I live in Wisconsin and I don't drink that much," she shot back.

_Fuck. I just called him an alchie. This should go down well._

"Oh, I'm an alcoholic now?" That smug grin she hated reappeared.

"I didn't mean that...exactly." She bit her lip and tried to think fast. "You know what? I kind of did."

"Ever think maybe you don't require as much stimulation as I do."

"Did Bud need a lot of stimulation, too?" She was treading in dangerous water now, but if he wasn't willing to open up to her when he claimed to be desperate for her to stay with him, then when would he? It might be her only shot to get some real honesty. By the looks of things though, he wasn't touching that last question with a ten foot pole. "Anyway, I always thought alcohol dulled your senses."

Hyde picked up the pace, dragging her slightly behind in his wake, and pointed to a large grey door at the end of the hall. "I like it better that way. Makes living in Wisconsin seem less crappy."

"You're saying if you lived somewhere more exciting you wouldn't drink as much?" She moved her legs faster to catch up, then tilted her head to get a better look at his face. Sometimes he was completely unreadable, even to her.

He shrugged and dropped her hand. "I don't know what I'm saying, Jackie. I'm 22. I've got nobody to answer to, so I just do what I want."

"Maybe that's the real problem." She nodded to herself.

_If he had somebody to answer to - anybody - he could never get away with acting this way. Maybe he wouldn't even want to? Then again, he still drank like a fish while he was married to Sam. More actually._

"Maybe it is." He pulled on the handle of the door, wrenching it open for her to walk through. "I haven't had a drink since I woke up married to you."

A peculiar feeling began to stir within Jackie's chest as she passed through the doors. "No. You haven't."

* * *

He let the door fall from his hands and slam shut. The room was completely black, other than a strip of aisle lighting bolted to the floor, that led to a ticket booth.

"Where are we?" Jackie whispered instinctively. "Bagpipe festival?"

Hyde leaned in until they were almost touching noses and whispered his answer. "You're about to find out."

He pulled two tickets from his pocket and extended them toward the ticket taker standing at the entrance, but before the young usher had a chance to take them, Jackie leaned in and snatched them out of Hyde's hands.

Jackie crouched down by the floor strip and squinted hard to read the tickets by its faint light. "Oh my God."

Hyde threw his head back in defeat and snapped his fingers. "And I was this close."

Jackie popped up from the floor and backed Hyde up against the nearest wall. "You're unbelievable." She threw herself at him, nearly knocking the wind out of his lungs with the force of her hug. His muscles were taut at first, but as she held on, he slowly melted into her embrace.

"I can't believe you really did this. I really can't." She was giddy and a little too loud, but she didn't care.

The woman at the entrance shushed them.

"If I'd known you'd get this amped up about it, I would've...I should've done it earlier." He seemed almost bashful to her.

"Yeah, but you would've hated it."

He'd done nice things in the past for her, but they were usually at no personal cost to him. If their interests converged, he was game. If she gave him a good enough incentive or nearly embarrassed him by groveling for it, he often conceded.

But he'd never willingly subjected himself to something he hated, simply to make her happy, without her even asking him to do it.

_Maybe he really has changed?_

"It's for charity." He shrugged, before looking off uncomfortably into the dark ether. "The proceeds go to the victims' families and shit."

_He may have changed, but he still can't own up to it._

"That's not why you did it." She brought his face to hers and kissed him until the both ran out of air. "Admit it."

His head was very still and gave her a warning glare. "I admit nothing."

She kissed him again, this time letting her fingers tinker their way down his chest until her thumbs hooked into the waistband of his jeans. "Admit it," she whispered against his lips as they ghosted his.

He lunged forward to increase their contact, but she pulled away. "Come on, Puddin' Pop. Don't you want to make me happy?"

Hyde's hands rested on the sides of her face, then he tipped his forehead against hers and nodded. "Maybe a little bit."

Her cheeks were warm with excitement. Being there with him like that made it easy to forget everything that led up to that moment and what might possibly come afterward. It was almost like being in suspended animation. "It's just you and me, alone in the dark...come on."

It was easier to talk in the dark. It always had been for them. The only times he was really able to open up to her were when they were lying in his cot at night, when one of them was unable to sleep. That was when he'd first told her about what happened the day his mother left. It was when she told him what happened the day she learned hers wasn't ever coming home again.

Lying in his arms in the dark was the first time she'd felt truly loved. Maybe the only time.

_Except for right now._

"I'd rather tear my own ears off than listen to this crap." He sighed his resignation heavily. "Yeah, I did it for you. I heard people talking about it in the hallway when I ran out to get clean clothes this morning and I knew you'd be into it, so I asked the front desk about how I could score some tickets for us. Turns out, they have people who do this menial shit _for_ you. It's like having Fez around, full time."

Jackie laughed and shook her head. "They're called concierges. They're in all of the fancy hotels."

"See?" His hands slid down to her behind and pulled her pelvis closer to his. "How am I gonna learn all of this meaningless crap without you there to tell me about it?"

"You could always buy an encyclopedia..."

"And support the government's covert scheme to disseminate false information to an unwitting public? No thanks." Jackie nuzzled against his stubble.

"Anyway, I figured, you know, that you probably sat through a lot of crap that you didn't like for me over the years, so...yeah. It was the least I could do."

_I didn't realize he'd noticed._

She ran her fingertips over his features. "Is it really possible you've changed? I really never thought you wanted to."

"I didn't." His thumbs caressed the lines of her cheekbones and she closed her eyes and let the feeling of contentment wash over her. "I still don't. But I'm gonna do it anyway."

The sounds of percussion coming from the main room forced Jackie's eyes open. A broad smile crept across her face as the dulcet tones of Olivia Newton-John floated over the theater's sound system. "I love this song."

_Come take my hand  
You should know me  
I've always been in your mind  
You know that I'll be kind  
I'll be guiding you_

"Look at you, at an Olivia Newton-John concert. Adorable." She placed Hyde's hands on her hips, wrapped her arms around his neck and began to rock. They had yet to enter the concert hall, but she was already on Cloud 9.

"Christ, Jackie. It's bad enough I'm even here. Now you're gonna force me to dance?"

"Steeeeven. You look really sexy when you dance," she murmured into his chest.

Hyde balked. "I'm not falling for that old line. I'm not an idiot like Kelso."

_Building your dream  
Has to start now  
There's no other road to take  
You won't make a mistake  
I'll be guiding you_

Jackie stood on her toes and nipped the edge of his earlobe. "I never danced like this with Kelso." The light was low, but she could still make out the outline of a smirk on his lips, which made her stomach flip. "Besides, I thought we agreed every bride deserves to dance on their wedding day at least twice."

The smirk evaporated and was replaced by a look of surprise. "You remember that?"

She leaned in to kiss him. "It's all starting to come back to me slowly."

The kiss was tentative at first, his lips were soft and warm against hers, then he deepened the pressure, and the frenzy began. He dragged his teeth lightly down the column of her neck, causing her to shiver. Her mind collapsed. She couldn't remember their past, she couldn't remember anything but his name.

A tiny sigh slipped from her throat.

Hyde's fingers gripped her hips hard and he flipped her around until her back was against the wall. He slid his tongue into her mouth deeply to taste her. "Jackie...I just-"

_Am I a hopeless moron for wanting this to be real? I can't live through another meltdown with him, but God help me, I still love him. I love him. It never goes away no matter what we do to each other. _

"Let's get out of here." Jackie was panting. Her hands wandered up the back of his shirt and caressed the skin over his shoulder blades.

"You're serious?" He half-laughed and then kissed her again, not even giving her a chance to answer.

_You have to believe we are magic  
Nothin' can stand in our way  
You have to believe we are magic  
Don't let your aim ever stray  
And if all your hopes survive  
Your destiny will arrive  
I'll bring all your dreams alive  
For you_

* * *

**A/N2 - Did they go back to the room? You'll have to tune in next time to find out.**

**Writing is a solitary pursuit, so I'm dying to hear from those of you still reading (Come on, lurkers, don't be shy!). If you have the time at all, if anything here has sparked a question or a feeling in you that you would like to share with me in a review, please do! I really look forward to the feedback, though I appreciate all of you who are reading this whether I hear from you or not :)**


	7. I Think I See the Light

**A/N - Hi everybody. Just wanted to thank you all for the comments you've left. I've been so busy updating this and my other WIP fic, that I've gotten a little behind on review responses, but I will get to them all.**

**I rewrote this chapter about 400 times, and I'm still not sure if I got it right. It would be great to hear your opinion, so please leave a review if you have the time. Unregistered readers are welcome and encouraged! Your feedback is always much appreciated :)**

**Thanks again to everybody who is reading, following and favoriting this fic!**

**PS - Things take a smutty turn in the 'present' section of the chapter. It's not super graphic, but the scene definitely earns its M rating.**

* * *

_**Last night.**_

___"_Other people have people here." Jackie's leg bounced up and down as she eyed the other engaged couples, who were chatting with their friends and family in the waiting room of the chapel. The crowd had thinned out considerably since they'd first arrived, which meant that the moment of truth was fast approaching. Faster than she'd like. "Is it weird that we don't have anybody here? I feel like it's weird."

_Jackie pulled the ends of his fingers to get his attention. _

_Hyde's arm dangled lazily around her shoulders, his thumb grazing the side of her arm. "Why? Did you invite somebody I'm unaware of?" _

_"God, no!" she said, a little too loudly, starling the passed out groom dozing across the aisle from them. _

_Why was she so keyed up? Wasn't this supposed to be a happy occasion?_

_Her leg continued to bounce until he stilled it with his hand. "We barely have anybody between us who'd care, and the few who would...it would not be in the way we'd want them to."_

_"Right. I forgot how few people actually give a shit that I exist, and the fewer who think you and I are a good idea. Thanks for pointing it out." Jackie could feel her face starting to flush with heat and she fended off the drunkard's morose that clung to the edges of her mood. She hoped it was the booze or the thick stench of cheap cologne in the air that was making her eyes water and her stomach roll, and not the impending promise of fidelity and love to a man she'd been back with less than five hours._

_The blowzy woman at the cashier's stand leaned back in her chair and snapped her gum loudly as she flipped to the next page on her clipboard. "Hyde and Burkhart. You all are up next."_

_Like a racehorse just out of the gate, Jackie's pulse took off in a flat gallop. "Oh God. Oh shit. This is...this is wrong, Steven."_

_Her hand reached under her chair and grappled for the mostly-gone magnum of champagne he'd hidden away from her. Hyde's nostrils flared as he watched her frantic search. "You haven't had enough?"_

_"Huh?" She was distracted by her quest. Processing words and phrases would just have to wait until she felt the chill of the smooth glass beneath her fingertips. The bottle nearly toppled over as it connected with her palm. "Oh thank God." She brought it to her lips and took a long swig, willing the liquid to soothe her nerves as it did her throat._

_Was this the dumbest decision on her life? Possibly. She reminded herself that they didn't live in Vatican City. Marriages could be undone. It wasn't forever, even if every fiber of her being wanted it to be._

_"Should I be offended that you don't consider yourself tanked enough to marry me?" Hyde's face was soft and open, but she could see his jaw tensing behind his stubble._

_Would he be a good husband? Was he even capable? Why had she not bothered asking herself these questions four shots of tequila ago?_

_Maybe she would have, if she weren't having too much fun with him to bother coming up with any meaningful answers?_

_"It's not that..." She twisted anxiously in her chair as if she were looking for a lost earring. Anything to avoid his hot glare. "I think maybe I'm just worried I'm doing this for the wrong reasons. You know, because dying alone doesn't really hold that much appeal for me." She quickly took another sip, mortified that she'd just said voiced one of her darkest fears aloud._

_When did she become a character in a Woody Allen film?_

_Hyde's head swiveled in her direction looking equal parts aggravated and empathetic. "You're not going to die alone. Even if this doesn't pan out -which it will - you've got guys lined up around the block waiting for a chance to get a crack at you."_

_Jackie closed her eyes and wore a beatific smile. "Hmm. It sounds so romantic when you put it that way..."_

_"Come on! You know what I'm saying." He took the bottle from her hands and helped himself. "Smart ass."_

_"Alright, it's true. Obviously, I can find a guy. I mean, look at me." She smoothed the wrinkles from her material of her pink satin dress. "That doesn't mean I won't be alone though."_

_He took another sip and then moved to pass the champagne back to her, but changed his mind and took another hit off the bottle. "Can I get that in English?"_

_"Even when you're surrounded by people, it can still feel very lonely, Steven. In fact, I think being surrounded by people you know couldn't care less about you is actually lonelier than just being by yourself." Jackie turned away embarrassed, and juggled the rings in her hand like Baoding balls. "I know that from experience."_

_She didn't have to elaborate. The details of their breakup hung in the air like a lead balloon. _

_"I guess I get what you mean." A flicker of regret shadowed his face as he lifted the heavy bottle to his mouth one more time and gulped most of the contents down._

_Maybe she wasn't the only one having doubts? Jackie wondered why they called it cold feet, when the only thing on her that felt remotely cold was the sheen of 'glow' starting to form on her brow._

_"And people say I'm an enigma." Hyde looked ahead. _

_Jackie stifled a laugh with the back of her hand. "Who says that?"_

_"People..." His hackles peeked out from behind his Zen._

_Jackie scoffed and flipped her hair over her shoulder. "People who don't know you, maybe."_

_"That's most people, Jackie." He caressed her collarbone with his thumb and she leaned into the motion. "Actually, pretty much all people. Except for Forman, maybe. And you."_

_She studied his features thoughtfully, though she hardly needed to. After two years of watching him sleep beside her, she knew every plane and crevice of his face like a well-worn map. _

_She knew that Steven could never eat when he was anxious about something. She could always tell when he was thinking up a particularly devious burn by the way he eagerly rubbed his hands against the sides of his jeans. And even without even trying, she could conjure in her mind the slow-eyed stare he turned out whenever he was thinking about her naked. _

_Hyde was no mystery. Not to her, at least. _

_"Well, you seem very transparent to me."_

_"Yeah." His hand slid down her thigh to cup her knee. "I know."_

_The tingling in her stomach took a detour South._

_He shrugged, displaying the tight-mouthed, bastard's smile he often used when he wanted to get people to stop harassing him. "I'm sick of having to explain myself to the masses."_

_"Wait - what masses?" For as much as she'd had to drink, she couldn't help but be confused. "Jeez, you're not that complicated. Get over yourself."_

_'What's New Pussycat?' piped in over the speakers, forcing Jackie's head into her hands. "Remind me why I picked this venue again?"_

_"Uh...you said you wanted the complete opposite of anything you'd ever really want for your wedding."_

_"I did?" She turned to face him with a creased brow. "Why would I say that?"_

_Hyde snorted a laugh. "I don't know why you say half the shit you do, Jackie. __Maybe you wanted to see if you could make it bad enough for me not to go through with it?"_

_She lifted her chin and took in the scene. The lavender stucco walls of the waiting room were lined with chairs, filled with 'reformed' escorts, burnt-out gamblers, and the remaining dregs that society had to offer. High above the fray __was a velvet portrait of the chapel's namesake, _lording over the room like a rhinestone-covered Jesus, his hips thrust forward as a blessing to his flock and gimlet eyes piercing the depths of their damaged souls. 

_The aftertaste of champagne turned sour on Jackie's tongue. "If that's the case, I did an amazing job." _

_"Not too amazing. I'm still here." Hyde peered at her through his peripheral vision._

_Pussycat, Pussycat_  
_I've got flowers_  
_And lots of hours_  
_To spend with you._  
_So go and powder your cute little pussycat nose!_

_Jackie's attention perked up at the strange lyrics. "What on Earth is this song supposed to be about?"_

_Hyde cocked his right ear toward the speakers to listen more carefully. "Dunno, but it sure sounds like he likes pussy." _

_A frown erupted on her face as her eyes fell to the palm of his hand, resting on her knee like it had earned the right to be there. His hand suddenly felt like it weighed a ton. _

_She couldn't breathe. "I-uh..."_

_Pussycat, Pussycat_  
_You're so thrilling_  
_And I'm so willing_  
_To care for you._  
_So go and make up your cute little pussycat face!_

_"This shit sounds weirder the more I drink." Hyde finished off the champagne and set the bottle at his feet. "They should probably just hand these yokels bottles of hooch on the way in. You know, for the unwilling." He gestured at Jerry-in-the-tacky-suit, who was in the process of being dressed down by his fiancee for yet another transgression. The man hung his head low and took the abuse with a stoic mien. "Marriage, man. Can't you just feel the love?"_

_Pussycat, Pussycat_  
_I love you_  
_Yes, I do!_  
_You and your pussycat face!_

_Did he truly want to marry her, or was this just a last ditch attempt to get her back? Was he referring to himself when he talked about the 'unwilling'?_

_Pulling herself to stand on weedy legs, Jackie braced her swaying form against the wall. The uneven peaks of cheap stucco paint dug sharply into her hands. "I don't..."_

_Hyde's face pinched as he watched her make her way to the front of the room. "Hey, where are you going?"_

_"I..." She cradled her forehead with her hand and ambled toward the exit of the chapel without looking back. "I'm not desperate, you know."_

_Hyde's eyes widened and he shot up after her in a panic. "Woah. Wait a minute, Jackie." He reached the door a second before she did, effectively blocking off her escape. "What just happened?"_

_The rough-hewn blonde at the front was staring at them openly now, finally taking an interest in the drama after tuning out their earlier performance._

_Jackie forced herself not to cry. This whole experience was embarrassing enough as it was, she didn't need to add puffy eyes to the humiliation. "You don't have to marry me just to prove a point."_

_"When did I say I was doing that?" He was starting to get aggressive, as he always did when she accused him of something unjust. "I know you've been hitting the bottle pretty hard tonight, doll, but I think you're starting to hear things."_

_"It's not what you said, Steven, it's what you didn't say."_

_"Jesus Christ." Both of his hands sunk into his curly mop and he tugged at his own hair lightly. "You haven't changed at all, have you? You still bitch when things aren't exactly the way you want them to be. I'm sorry, can you at least give me a copy of the script? What 'exactly' did you want me to say?" _

_"I -"_

_"Why can't you ever just 'be'?"_

_His accusation cut her to the quick. Was that actually how he felt about her? Was she really guilty of doing this?_

_"What part of this evening has gone remotely the way I wanted it to? Have I complained at all?" Jackie was calm now. She was honestly curious as to how he planned to pin this whole thing on her. He always found a way._

_"What could you possibly have to complain about, except for maybe being a little raw from me fucking you too hard into the mattress?" He wet his lips at the memory and a smug smile worked its way to the surface._

_All of the air left her body. Her mind clouded over, wiping all thoughts besides throttling him to the ground, from her brain. He was lucky there were so many witnesses around, because she'd definitely had enough liquid courage at that point to dispatch him without a second thought._

_Jerry-in-the-tacky-suit gave Hyde a double thumbs up, earning himself a hard smack to the arm from his irritable bride, who shot Jackie a supportive look._

_Jackie felt like kicking herself when her voice barely came out as a whisper. "You're a pig, Steven." Her eyes darted to the man in the cheap suit and she sneered. "You too, Jerry. Especially you."_

_The man cowered in shame._

_She couldn't believe how quickly the night had taken such a horrible turn. This was exactly why they had no business getting married. They were too volatile._

_Hyde shifted his weight from one foot to the other as he thought about what she said. "So...yeah. That was a dick move." _

_Did he just admit he was wrong? She tilted her head to get a better view of his face. "Then why did you say it?" _

_He scratched at his hair again. "Uh, 'cause I'm a dick? I guess I just don't get why you always gotta freak out about the stupid stuff."_

_Jackie laughed and then shook off the hit. "You should probably stop talking, you're only making things worse."_

_"Because I don't believe in marriage?" _

_He doesn't believe in marriage? Then what the hell was he doing with that stripper for four months in 1979? It's not like he would have let her stay if he hadn't put a ring on her finger. "I know we never saw eye to eye on the whole marriage thing, but it's hardly 'stupid'."_

_"Marriage IS stupid, Jackie. I didn't stop thinking that just because I asked you to do it." He spoke to her as if she were impaired. Maybe she was, because she'd clearly forgotten that this was the main reason they never got married before. _

_The acid in her stomach rose and she wondered if it were possible for an organ to digest itself._

_"You're serious..." Her tongue felt like sand against the roof of her mouth, dry and scratchy with its lack of saliva. She could barely work up enough fluid to even swallow. "Then why did you ask me?"_

_Hyde jaw flexed hard, but he said nothing._

_Of course. She wasn't surprised by his lack of answer, but was at least thankful it wasn't his typical 'I don't know'. _

_"Looks like you really dodged a bullet." Jackie lifted his hand and deposited both wedding rings in the center of it. "If you hurry, you can probably still catch Sam's 3am show. Maybe she'll be drunk enough to marry you again."_

_As she nudged him aside to reach for the door, he grabbed her arm. "I'm sorry," he whispered, almost to himself. _

_"No. You're not." She hated the sound of her own voice when she was like this. It was cold and unforgiving, and reminded her of another time she'd pretended not to care after one of his apologies._

_"Yeah, I am. For everything I said, I'm sorry. I was being an asshole. Maybe I'm a little freaked out about the whole getting married thing, too." He looked longingly at the empty bottle of champagne on the floor and then turned his attention back to her. _

_"You asked me. I didn't pressure you into it." She stood there frozen, staring at the doorknob. His larger hand covered hers as it grasped the lever, obscuring it completely. "If you thought it was stupid, you never should've suggested it. I'm not some desperate cow like my mother. I've done perfectly fine without a man."_

_Hyde flinched at her words, looking unsure of how to continue. "I - I don't know what I'm doing half the time, man. I just...I wish I knew the right stuff to say, but it always comes out wrong. All I know is that I came here to get you back, and I'm not going home until I do."_

_His determination piqued her interest and she loosened her grip on the door handle. "You don't have to marry me to do that."_

_"I know that." Hyde pulled down his glasses and hooked them on the front of his shirt. "I still want to though."_

_Her mind was swimming in a sea of tequila and champagne. She wasn't sure what either of them was trying to say, but she knew it was important, so she decided to blurt out the first thing that came to her mind. The one question she had been asking herself since she found him loitering in front of her hotel room. _

_"Why? Why do you even want me back? It's not just about sex, is it? I mean, I know I'm excellent in the sack, but that can't be the only reason."_

_"I don't need to go chasing a lay across state lines, regardless of how 'excellent' it is." Eyes glued to his boots, Hyde shook his head aimlessly while trying to formulate the right answer. "I, you know..." With a pleading look, he grabbed her hand from the door and took it in his own, interlacing their fingers together slowly. "I feel like 'me' when I'm with you. The good version."_

_They both knew exactly what he meant. There was always a Dr. Jekyll to Steven Hyde, even if very few people ever got to meet him. _

_"I don't remember what the good version looks like anymore, Steven."_

_"I was...not unhappy." Hyde's confession brought a scowl to his face. He always likened talking about his feelings to an afternoon marathon of watching the movie 'Ice Castles'. He'd hated the film._

_"Is that your backward way of saying you were happy when we were together?"_

_He shrugged, which for him was as good as a 'yes'. "Were you?"_

_"I don't know. Sometimes." She laughed nervously and buried her face into her free hand. "It wasn't perfect with us, but when we were happy, I was really really happy. When we weren't...well, you know how that went. But yeah, I was happy with you. It wouldn't have broken my heart to lose you if I wasn't."_

_"I hear that."_

_Did he just admit she broke his heart? She tried to hide the satisfaction that was threatening to brim over._

_He brought her hand to his lips and kissed each of her knuckles. "I think you missed me."_

_She sighed heavily. "I think you missed me and are too chicken to just tell me, so you turned it around."_

_"You get me." He smiled, and moved in closer to her. "And even though you're gonna deny it, I get you too."_

_She shook her head and tried to turn the door knob. "I wish that were true."_

_"See? Denial." He pulled her to him and brought their conjoined hands to his chest. "I was an idiot, but I swear I'm not gonna be one anymore."_

_"You can't promise me that Steven. You're a man. You're like, genetically engineered to be a total moron." Jackie heart was beating rapidly and her head was growing lighter by the second. She pulled out of his grip and placed her hand back on the doorknob. "Anyway, you've made that promise before..."_

_"__I know." _Hyde leaned all of his weight on the barrier to prevent her from opening it. "But I'm not gonna fuck things up this time."

_Jackie's head dropped forward against the plank of ivory-painted wood with a thump. The twinkle lights that surrounded it blinked on and off, mocking her with their persistent cheerfulness as her head swam in doubt. "I can't," she whispered into the door. "Why can't you leave me alone?"_

_"I've lived through a lot of shit - both good and bad - and most of it was just sort of forced on me. Edna leaving, going to live with the Formans, WB giving me the store, I didn't go after any of that." _

_"We all have our crosses to bear."_

_"You don't get it. The only risk I took, the only big decision I ever made for myself, was kissing you that day in Forman's basement. How the hell was I supposed to know it would be the one smart thing I ever did in my life?" His voice was hoarse and uncertain, reeking of both pain and desperation. He stepped up behind her and she could feel every inch of his body pressed up against her back. An hour ago, it would have felt nice, but now she just felt suffocated._

_These rare, soul-baring speeches might have been hard for him to say, but they were even more overwhelming for her to listen to._

_Every muscle in her tiny frame clenched as he held her without permission. "Oh."_

_Hyde buried his face into the back of her hair. She could hear him inhale her scent. "When you said you were leaving for Chicago, I went a little crazy."_

_"A little crazy?" _

_"Okay, so I freaked. You were the only thing that was just mine, Jackie. I didn't know how to deal with you leaving."_

_"You were all I had too, but I didn't fuck off to Las Vegas and marry a stripper," Jackie said with a bitterness that surprised even herself._

_"If I could undo it, you know I would." Pulling her hair to the side, his lips fell onto the back of her neck. "I'll do anything to get you back."_

_With his mouth distracting her from her anger, her resolve began to weaken. "I don't want to marry somebody who thinks marriage is a stupid institution."_

_He turned her around by her shoulders. "Marriage is just about sticking around, right? And trying to make the person you're with smile a little bit before you both become worm food. I can dig it as a concept, I guess. But I still think it's insane to involve the government in my sex life, like I need them to validate it or whatever." _

_"Wow. Don't ever let anybody tell you you're not a romantic at heart." Jackie rolled her eyes. _

_"Don't think that's gonna be an issue."_

_"Marriage is more than that, Steven. It also means being a team and riding out the bad times together. It doesn't involve rushing out to screw the first hussy who crosses to your side of the street when the going gets tough."_

_"You're the only hussy I want on my side of the street, princess."_

_Jackie frogged him in the shoulder. __"Dipshit."_

_Laughter rolled out of Hyde's lungs as he rubbed his arm._

_"It's about being a family." She spoke louder to top the volume of his laugh, then looked him squarely in the eyes. "And it's about love."_

_"Love, huh? Then this marriage thing should be a piece of cake." He closed his eyes and placed a gentle kiss on her forehead, then slipped an arm around her waist. "You belong with me. You know you do. You gotta stop being so stubborn about it."_

_A rash of chills pricked her skin and she shrugged. It was the truth. The only place that had ever felt like home to her was in his arms. "And where do you belong?"_

_When Hyde's lip quirked into that familiar smirk she both loved and hated, she knew she would break. "Right behind you, holding you on my lap."_

_Jackie's limbs felt weak at his confession. It took everything she had not to climb up into his lap at that very moment. She'd been worn down, and her nose wrinkled at the defeat. "I must be crazy."_

_"How crazy?" His lips hovered just above hers and she could feel the heat radiating off of his skin._

_"Really, really, really crazy." The last thing she remembered was her mouth crashing against his._

* * *

**Present.**

"Come on," Jackie whispered urgently into Hyde's ear as her hands fell to his zipper. "What are you waiting for, an engraved invitation?"

_So, I'm a little out of control? I can own it. I wouldn't be the first girl to lose her mind in Vegas._

"They do those?" Hyde brought her hands back up to his sides and groaned as she latched onto a pulse point on his neck and sucked hard. "Fuck."

"Absolutely." She mouthed her way up to his earlobe and took it between her teeth. "Glad we're on the same page now."

"Jackie..."

_Ugh. Why won't he just do what he always does and go for the goods? Since when did he grow a conscience?_

"You know you want to..." She bit down hard, causing Hyde to gasp, then soothed the reddened skin with her tongue.

"Jesus. You're the one who said you didn't want this to be about sex, right?" He pulled out of her grasp and leveled her with a stern look.

He'd taken her to a Olivia Newton-John concert. A musical abomination, by his standards.

He, of the dirty, hard rock band tees and combat boots, had gone out of his way to buy tickets, simply to put a smile on her face. It was the most romantic thing anybody had ever done for her. The fact that he was the one to do it blew her away even more.

A sly smile spread across her lips. "No. I said I didn't want this to _just _be about sex."

It had always been intense between them, but it had never just been about the physical. Their relationship was everything - love, hate, sex, laughter - all of it wrapped in shroud of burlap that chafed uncomfortably, keeping everything always on edge.

He echoed her grin and the slow-eyed look she'd always loved returned with it. His voice rumbled low in his chest. "You're a bad girl. You know that, right?"

_God, his voice..._

She shrugged and closed the distance between them. "I thought that was the reason you loved me."

He shook his head slowly as he enveloped her in his arms. "That's why I like you. There's a shitload of other reasons why I love you...though this could easily make the top of that list by the end of the night if you don't stop with the come-fuck-me eyes, already."

"Then come fuck me, already," she demanded in a harsh whisper, pulling him toward her by his ass.

The chorus of the song 'Physical' started up in the background, forcing an embarrassed chuckle out of both of them.

His fingertips toured the curve of her back, igniting a path that ended in the valley of her behind. He squeezed hard with both hands and then pressed her to the wall, using it as leverage to grind his hard bulge between her legs, probing at different spots until he found the one that made her toes curl. "I _was_ trying to be good. For you."

"Uh-huh. Well, I fully expect you to be good. For me." The heat pooled at her groin, and she quickly drew her legs around his waist and clung to his shoulders for dear life.

_Oh my God, I'm an animal._

The room was pitch black and disorienting and the concert hall loud, but the sound of her own ragged breathing and the feeling of Hyde's hands on her body drew all of her focus. She wondered if the ticket taker could tell what was going on a few yards away from him. It didn't take a genius to figure out what was going on. It was Vegas though, and apparently, nothing shocked a Las Vegan less than public sex.

"Do you want to make love right here?" Her fingers wound through his hair and playfully pulled at a lock of it. "You always did like doing it in public."

"Who the hell have you been dating since we've been apart?" He wrapped her hair around one of his fists and lightly tugged to expose more of her skin to him. "I'd like to send him a thank you card."

"You really want to know?"

"Hell no!" he growled into the hollow of her neck. "That's the last thing I want to hear about."

She laughed hard and slid her hand down the back of his jeans. "His name was Paco. He was 30, worked as a runway model for Calvin Klein and was a part-time roadie for AC/DC..."

Hyde dropped her suddenly, back on to her feet. "You'd better be fucking with me."

"Which part upsets you the most? That he was a model?"

"No, dammit, that he was a roadie for AC/DC!" He lips drew together tightly and he pointed at her. "You're messing with my head."

She smiled brightly. "Obviously. As if I'd date a guy name Paco." She stuck her tongue out of her mouth in revulsion. "Or a roadie. Or an old dude."

"So the male model part...?" He tried but failed to ask the question without exposing his keen interest.

Jackie lowered her chin in a coy expression. "A girl's gotta have some secrets."

Hyde glanced at the ticket taker who was busy doodling on the back of a discarded ticket stub with a yellow highlighter pen that glowed in the tiny black light sitting atop of the booth. "Maybe we should take this upstairs?"

She pouted her lip out. "When did you get so soft, Steven?"

"Soft?" Hyde leaned his hands on either side of her head and rocked his erection against her heat in rhythmic strokes. She could feel her excitement starting to build again, and so could he, as his fingers stroked the wet strip of cotton between her legs. "God damn, you're ready."

"So are you going to do something about it or leave me hanging here?" She bucked her hips up against his. "It's dark, nobody will see. We don't even know these people, anyway."

"This is our honeymoon, Jackie. You want me to screw you in front of a crowd of Xanadu-worshiping pansies wearing polyester jumpsuits, that's your call."

_Honeymoon? As if!_

Jackie grunted. "If this is what you consider a honeymoon, then you may as well screw me against this wall now, because it'll probably be the last chance you'll have to put your hands on me. I'm not from 'Hill People', Steven. I have standards."

"You could always call Paco to come and pick you up? Take you to Shangri-La?" He waggled his eyebrows at her in jest. "He's a male model, Jackie. He can afford it."

_Well that lie didn't blow up in my face or anything._

"There really was a Paco, he just wasn't named Paco. His name was -"

"Can it." He brushed the hair away from her face with his free hand. "Stay with me and I'll take you somewhere for a real honeymoon, treat you like a lady. I'll screw you against a wall somewhere classy and tropical, instead of this cesspool."

Her hands stilled for second and she tried to suss out if he was being serious or not.

"Yeah, right. You can't burn me with a promise of a holiday that will never materialize. It's too cruel for even you to toy with my emotions like that. Even stand-up comedians draw an ethical line drawn somewhere, and they're a bunch of hard core drug addicts." She licked a wide path up the front of his neck. "Alright, I've got an idea. Let's throw all the money you won on the bed and then roll around on it naked!"

"Figures that's what would get your motor running." The hint of amusement in his voice sent her into a fit of giggles. "And here I assumed you'd want to listen to your crap music for a little while. Maybe try to force me to dance around like a monkey for your amusement?"

"If you moved like a monkey, I'd be forcing you _not_ to dance...or at least, not anywhere near me." His hand dipped under her skirt again. "Anyway, I plan to force you to dance with me at the wedding, so fret not."

"You think you can make me do your bidding now, just 'cause you put this badass Skeletor ring on my finger?" Jackie felt the wedding ring brush her center and her head lolled against his shoulder.

"That's right," she said between pants as Hyde's fingers pushed past the cotton barrier. "We're married now, so I can make you do whatever I want. It's the law."

_Okay, maybe not technically, but daddy always did do whatever my mom told him to do. Except for that whole embezzling thing. There's no way she didn't tell him to run._

"How are you going to manage that?" Hyde suckled the column of her neck and she moaned softly, despite her desire not to give him the satisfaction.

"I'll do what all smart wives do. I'll withhold sex." She gasped at the addition of his thumb pressed to the center of her core.

"Sounds like a solid plan." He grinned smugly as he took her to the edge of the cliff and dangled her off of it. His hand picked up speed, plucking her skin like a Spanish guitar, playing her favorite song. "Let me know how that works out for you."

A whimper escaped from the back of her throat and her voice grew strained. "I'll even request some Olivia Newton-John songs from the DJ for you to dance to, just so you can really prove how much you love me."

"You don't really think I'm gonna have my ass handed to me by Sandy from Grease?"

"I know you will. Donna told me you refer to my mix tapes as 'hell's soundtrack' behind my back..." He cackled loudly but she cut him off with a kiss, which grew more passionate the quicker his fingers moved inside of her.

"Nah. Hell would have a much cooler soundtrack than that, doll. Sid Viscous and Keith Moon are in hell. Your mix tapes are more like purgatory, unpleasant and never-ending." Pinning her to the wall with his body to keep her in place, he slipped his other hand past the neckline of her wrap dress and sighed as his fingers found her unbound breasts. "I love that you never wear a bra."

"Oh shit!" Jackie cried out as he buried his face into her chest and took one of her tight nipples in his warm mouth. She attempted to buck her hips to increase the friction, but her legs were like jelly and she was unable to move. Her fingers dug into his hair, hard enough to leave bruises on his scalp, and he shoved her over the edge. "Steven! God yes!"

Her head slapped the wall hard enough to see stars, exploding like fireworks behind her lids, as she came down from her high.

"So...you you were saying...that little plan you had about making me do stuff?"

"The only thing I want to make you do right now is take me upstairs and tell me all of the disgusting things you plan to do to me."

"Oh yeah!" A familiar voice called out from the darkness.

Jackie's heart lurched up into her throat and she felt Hyde's muscles tense under her hands. "Crap."

_Stupid Michael always has to ruin everything!_

The couple reluctantly extracted their hands from one another's clothing, but stayed close by.

_Did Michael just hear Steven getting me off? Cosmic retribution, anyone?_

"Hyde, please tell me that your brain is in some kind of Olivia Newton-John induced psychosis," a different male voice whined from the same direction. "I mean, it's dark as hell in here, so it's understandable if you can't, you know, tell that the woman you're currently groping is, in fact, a demon spawn."

_Wasn't Donna supposed to put a muzzle on her girlfriend tonight?_

"Shut the fuck up, Forman." Hyde punched the figure in the dark.

"Ow! Damn Hyde, that was me." Kelso cried as he rubbed his arm.

"Sorry, man." He slammed his fist into a different shoulder.

Kelso's shriek was as high as a woman's. "That's still me!"

"It's dark in here. I'm wearing shades." Hyde shrugged and took his sunglasses off. "My bad."

"Look, I don't know what the hell this..." Eric waved his hand at the couple like he was loathe to touch either of them, "is, but it needs to stop. Ugh. I think I might lose my lunch."

Jackie hissed. "Stop being such a drama queen, Eric. It's not like you've never seen us kissing before."

"Those were actually separate thoughts, devil, but I could see why you'd think they were related." Eric laughed at his own joke alone. "Just be glad you missed lunch."

"Donna always said you had a delicate constitution..." Jackie started, going for the low hanging fruit. "On the account of you weighing less than I do."

"No Jackie, he's not exaggerating. There's a real chance we all could both be blowing chunks pretty soon," Kelso piped in.

Jackie felt bad, thinking of her best girlfriend being forced to suffer through a third incarnation of Mrs. Forman's chili. "Gross."

"And yet, infinitely more palatable than watching Hyde make it with Beelzebub against the wall of a concert hall," Eric cracked.

She looked at Eric's shadow with derision, pissed she was wasting one of her more epic 'bitchface' expressions on a fight in the dark. "Aww come on, Eric, you should stick around. Maybe you could finally learn how to please a woman?"

Hyde slipped an arm around her waist and rubbed small circles on her hip with his fingertips.

_I forgot how turned of he gets when I'm burning his friends._

"How exactly would I learn how to please a _woman_ from watching Hyde fool around with you?" Though she couldn't see him, Jackie knew Eric was wearing the kind of smirk that she'd want to slap off his face.

She took a step in the direction of his voice and adopted a pleasant, teasing tone. "If you can't tell what a woman looks like - twig boy - then I'm afraid you're hopeless, so you may as well leave. In fact, do leave. Please."

"Eric, you should probably watch your step right now, because when Jackie sounds friendly, that's when she's the most dangerous." Kelso tugged his friend back by the shirt sleeve. "One time, when Jackie found a pair of your sister's panties in my room, she went from nice to just totally mental in like, a second. It was shocking! She was like that crazy orangutan in 'Any Which Way You Can'. You know he died ripping another monkey's face off, right?"

Eric looked at his friend with deep pity and yanked his sleeve back. "Pretty sure you just made that up, Kelso."

"Well, it could've happened!" He shouted indignantly. "Anyway Jackie, Caroline made the hotel serve this weird dish from Fez's homeland, and I'm not positive, but it might have involved armadillo."

Hyde wrinkled his face. "Is that true or more of Kelso's made up bullshit?"

Eric lifted his hands. "It was either roadkill, or we were served stewed leather. All I know is, even Fez wouldn't touch that shit without getting drunk first, and it's from _his_ country."

Jackie lightly hip checked Hyde. "Good call on the ice cream. That was pretty smart."

"Of course it was." He wrapped his other arm around her waist and her spine locked. "To be fair, I accidentally wandered into the kitchen before I found the dining room. Not pretty. It was like a scene out of 'Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH'."

_I know they can't probably see, but he's holding onto me in front of our friends like this is totally normal. Is it normal? It kind of feels strange, but also kind of normal._

"Jackie won't eat something if its not pretty." Kelso said in a dreamy voice.

She nodded in agreement. "That's true."

Eric tapped Kelso on the shoulder. "Then I guess it's safe to say that Hyde's junk...is breathtaking."

Kelso chuckled and attempted to high-five his friend, missing the first three tries completely.

Hyde leaned forward and punched the nearest shoulder. "Settle down, Erica."

"Ow! My eye!"

"Oops." He sighed and then hit the correct man.

"Shit! It was a compliment!" Eric rubbed the sore spot on his upper arm. "Every man wants to hear that their wang is beautiful."

Hyde hit him again. "Stop talking about my wang, Forman!"

"What are you two doing here anyway?" Jackie asked with a firmly planted scowl.

Eric continued rubbing his arm. "Uhh...would you believe we came here to get our groove on to some ON-J?"

"Not really." Hyde raised an eyebrow. His tone suggested he was done fucking around.

"We came here to find weed!" Kelso announced gleefully.

"Shut up, nimrod. You want to get arrested?" Eric frogged Kelso's arm, though it barely earned any notice.

Looking around to make sure there weren't any people lurking nearby who could eavesdrop, Kelso leaned in. "We couldn't find you anywhere, dude, so we came here. There's always weed at a concert, right? And this _is _a concert...sort of."

"Not so much." Eric shook his head. "If anything, we figured Satan would be here. And since you've been balls deep in evil for the last day..."

_Wait! They know?_

"Who told you about us?" Jackie placed her hand on Hyde's chest protectively.

Kelso started laughing hysterically. "Oh man, you would have loved it! You know, if it wasn't about you and stuff."

Hyde's sight locked with hers and she could see his jaw tensing up. "What happened?"

Jumping up and down on the balls of his feet, Eric rubbed his hands in anticipation of the story. "So Caroline – who, by the way, is like ten times crazier than the last time we saw her – starts asking where Jackie is. Donna speaks up, telling everybody that she felt sick or something and had to go lie down. So then, Caroline starts shrieking like a banshee, crying about how Jackie was gonna get murdered by 'The Sunset Strip Killers' now, because she dared to walk back to her room all by herself."

_The Sunset Strip is in California. What's her deal with California and serial killers?_

"What is her fixation with me getting whacked?" Jackie squeaked. "Nobody would want to murder somebody as pretty as me, right?"

"I can answer that..." Eric spoke up from the void.

"Shut up, dork," she barked. "And please continue with your story."

"So Caroline is freaking out with worry and Fez is trying to calm her down, and finally Fez shouts out 'Don't worry, my candy cane, Hyde is missing too. I'm sure he walked Jackie safely back to her room, you know, because he is boning her again.'" Eric was vibrating with Schadenfruede at the reveal. "He really belted it out too, on the account of her screaming so loud. Everybody heard. It was awesome."

Kelso snickered. "Yeah, it was pretty sweet."

Jackie buried her face in her hands.

_Great. Now all of the wedding guests are probably picturing me getting boned. At the very least, they're thinking about what I look like naked. That wasn't supposed to happen until they saw me in my bridesmaid dress._

"Oh yeah," Eric continued, "and then Caroline got really pissed off because she thought you two just ditched the luncheon to go fuck in a broom closet somewhere."

"That bitch!" Jackie's jaw dropped. "As if I would have sex in a broom closet! I would never make love where I could get my clothing all smudged."

"We had sex in a broom closet once, Jackie." Kelso smiled knowingly as he jabbed Jackie in the ribs with his elbow.

"That was a coat closet, you idiot." She jabbed him back even harder causing him to collapse at the waist in pain.

"Damn Jackie!"

Eric pushed Kelso out of the way. "Anyway, you need to go calm her down before the wedding, Devil."

"Fine."

"You know, after you guys finish 'doing it' up against the ticket booth. No rush." Eric said, his voice thick with sarcasm.

"We weren't 'doing it' against the ticket booth," Hyde said snidely, mocking Forman's voice.

Eric tipped his head to the right and dropped his lids to half-mast. "Really? 'Cause it kinda looked like ya were."

"I need air." Jackie pushed harshly past Kelso and headed for the door.

"Thanks for that. Morons." Hyde grumbled as he followed her out of the door.

* * *

Jackie was halfway down the corridor when she heard her name being called and slowed down.

"Jackie!" Hyde jogged up to where she was standing. "I'm sorry about those hyenas. I'll take care of them later."

Humor twinkled behind her eyes as she watched him catch his breath. "Why are you sorry? My mom always told me that the quickest way for a woman to leave any room is to storm out in a huff."

_Or to pretend like she was about to vomit, but Eric already beat me to that one._

"You're not pissed?"

She narrowed her gaze at him. "No. Of course not. They're just being their typical idiot selves. I just figured you'd want to get out of there...so we could be alone."

He grinned at her with admiration. "Nice."

Jackie walked slowly toward him, her shoes shuffling along the low-pile carpet, wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her lips to his briefly. "Stick with me, young grasshopper, and you will learn much."

"I will stick with you." Hyde cradled her face with his hands and she melted into them. "You planning on sticking with me?"

"Steven, I-"

"Don't file for an annulment."

_Shit. I knew this would come up again soon enough._

Her expression dropped along with her blood pressure, and she suddenly grew dizzy. "I don't know, Steven...I'll think about it."

His eyes lit up. "Last time, I got an outright no. This is progress."

_Are we making progress?_

She looked up at his uncovered eyes and smiled. "Maybe a little..."

"Jacqueline Burkhart!" a woman's voice shouted angrily from across the corridor.

Caroline headed toward her bridesmaid, red-faced from fury, fists balled at her sides, and eyes as manic as ever.

Jackie groaned and let her forehead fall against Hyde's shoulder. "And the hits just keep on coming..."

* * *

**A/N2 -So, what did you think? This was the longest chapter so far, and probably the most flashback heavy. I'm still planning on doing ten chapters, so we're almost to the end. I've been kind of feeling bummed about this fic, only because it's been harder to write than anticipated, so if you do like it and want to read more, please let me know by leaving a review. Encouragement helps me through the block. I would never abandon a fic (haven't yet, don't plan on starting), but I might back-burner this one if there isn't a huge demand, only because my other WIP is so time consuming and complicated. I promise it will get finished soon enough though. I'm usually pretty fast. Anyway - thanks for reading!**


	8. Crazy

**A/N - Due to the overwhelming response you've given me, I'm pushing on with this story until the end. Thank you so much for all of the comments and PM's, I really appreciate them all :)**

**Two more chapters to go!**

**PS - This chapter is smut-free. Sorry!**

* * *

**CHAPTER 8**

Jackie tried to close her eyes and mute the tone of Caroline's shrill voice, to no avail. She was sure that dogs of all breeds throughout the city of Las Vegas had to be cowering under their paws at the sound of her own name.

"Do you want me to deal with this?" Hyde murmured quietly into her hair.

She gave him an appreciative side-long glance, but he had to know that she had it under control.

_It's a sweet offer, but seriously? I can take care of this in my sleep._

"Jackie!" Caroline could barely catch her breath past the anger that seemed to be oozing bile out of every pore.

Jackie placed her hands out in front of her to preempt the tongue-lashing she was about to receive. "Caroline...I know what you're going to say..."

"Caroline! I know what you're going to say!" Caroline shrieked in a frenzied mimic of Jackie's voice. "Oh really, Jackie? Really? What am I gonna say? Huh? 'Cause I'd love to hear it!"

_Oh crap. She's already hit Mach 10. This is going to be trickier than I thought. Is it too late to pretend I didn't hear her and just back away slowly? _

"Dial it back a notch, whack job," Hyde spat in her direction.

Jackie shot Hyde a warning look and turned back to Caroline. "I know you're pissed..."

"I know you're pissed!" Caroline continued to mimic. "Really, Jackie? Why on Earth would I be pissed? It's not like my maid of honor bailed on my fucking wedding luncheon or anything!" Rivulets of hysterical laughter rolled from her tongue in endless succession.

The hair on the back of Jackie's neck stood at attention.

_Jesus._

"I had my reasons," she explained quietly, while desperately trying to think up a plausible excuse.

"Ohhh! Well that explains everything!" Caroline threw her arms into the air melodramatically.

Hyde's brow quirked and he wrapped his arm around Jackie's waist. "Come on Jackie, let's bolt. You don't need to deal with this shit."

Did she feel like dealing with it? No. But he was wrong about her not having to do it. She promised Fez that she would, and that was that. She would never break a promise to Fez, especially not one as important as this.

Jackie squirmed out of Hyde's hold. "Steven, I'm sorry. I've got to go with Caroline and help her get ready for tonight."

His eyes widened with genuine surprise. "What for?"

_Is he that dense? It's her wedding day! Even a nut job deserves to feel like princess on her big day._

"Today's the most special day of her life and she deserves to have it be as perfect as possible," Jackie said, as she moved closer to the high-strung blonde, who was still shaking with rage. "And I mean, let's face it, that's highly unlikely without my help."

As if somebody flipped a light switch, Caroline went from incandescent to calm in five seconds flat. "Oh Jackie! You're the nicest girl I've ever met in my life."

"Really?" Hyde looked on doubtfully and Jackie smacked his chest with the back of her hand. "You don't get out much, do you, Caroline?"

"Can we have a second, please?" Jackie asked the bride, then pushed Steven off to the side without waiting for a response.

Hyde regarded Jackie with suspicion. "You're ditching me for that?"

"I'm not ditching you, Puddin' Pop. I'm living up to my commitments."

He smiled at the use of his nickname and his hands settled on her hips. "If I remember correctly, she's not the only one you made a commitment to."

Jackie gently ran both hands down the sides of his face. "We're going to see each other in a few hours."

_This has to be the first time he's ever tried to stop me from leaving when we weren't in bed._

"I know. It's not that..." Hyde looked away, and rubbed the back of his neck.

She offered him a reassuring smile. "Whatever is going to happen with us is going to happen."

His frequently-worn, 'sour lemon' expression reappeared. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"I don't know. I guess it just means...that if it's meant to be with us, it'll just be." Jackie shrugged, not knowing how else to explain it. She knew he wouldn't accept a statement like that as an answer, not being a big believer in fate, but he was just going to have to trust her and go with the flow.

_I can't believe I'm telling HIM to relax._

"That sounds a lot like what somebody says right before they drop the axe on the other person."

They'd been together for almost 24 hours straight, and Jackie needed some distance. It would be impossible for her to weigh all of her options carefully if she had no time apart from Hyde. The reality was, she was unable to think straight when he was near. If he expected her to make a major decision about her life, she needed a clear head to do it with.

"I just need to think, okay? And you do too." She tugged lightly on the collar of his shirt. "It's not just about me making a decision, Steven, it's your decision, too."

Hyde's eyes burned hotly into hers. "I already made my decision, okay? I made it when I got on the plane to come over here."

Her stomach did a flip and she fisted his collar more tightly. "Humor me."

_Don't you get it? I can't go through another breakup with you. I need you to be 110% sure about me._

"No." He smiled malevolently and then immediately relented, averting his stare. "Fine. Whatever."

Jackie jerked both sides of his collar to get his attention. "Don't start with the 'whatever' bullshit. Just think about it."

He reluctantly nodded and she released his lapel.

"I'll see you soon." She leaned forward to kiss him goodbye and he pulled her into a full embrace, deepening the kiss so much it made her woozy.

"Somebody call the fire department!" Donna shouted through cupped hands, followed by a loud catcall, as she strolled toward them.

"Big Red." Hyde flipped a head nod in her direction before releasing Jackie with one last kiss. "She had a rough morning, so don't let her get too drunk." He pointed at his secret wife, winking at her before heading back into the concert hall.

"Jackie can make her own decisions, Hyde. She's a grown woman!" Donna called after him, in vain. "So, Mrs..."

"Donna! What a coincidence _you_ showed up here." Caroline scowled hard in the redhead's direction.

"Is it a coincidence when you're invited to something and you attend?"

Both of Caroline's fists found her hips and dug in for purchase. "I didn't invite you. Fezzy didn't invite you. Why are you here?"

Donna fought back an amused smile. "Uh, because Fez invited Eric, and I live with him. I'm Eric's plus-one."

Caroline surveyed her imagined rival with a critical eye. "What do you think, Jackie? Can we trust her not to throw herself at Fez like she used to? Can we trust her not to try to break up my wedding?"

_Oh lord. She can't be serious. Donna is dating Eric. She may have 'unique' taste in men, but Fez is hardly her type. _

Donna pretended to beseech Jackie with her eyes. "Well, Jackie?"

Jackie didn't even bother trying to stifle her laughter. "I don't know, Caroline...does she look trustworthy to you?"

"I promise, I can be trusted." A closed-mouth smile played on Donna's lips as her eyes connected with her one-time closest friend. "I won't even look in Fez's direction. Scout's honor." She held her large hand up in a girl scout's pledge.

Jackie looked toward Caroline for approval. "She did pledge. I think we should trust her."

Caroline toured Donna's curvy frame one last time and then nodded definitively. "I was a girl scout. I'll accept that pledge, but she had better not pull any funny business, or I will totally call the Kenosha chapter scout master on her ass, and tell her she violated the code."

"Come on. Let's get you upstairs, bride." Jackie linked her arm through Caroline's and then did the same with Donna's. "We need every last scrap of time we have, if we're going to make you presentable. I'm good, but I'm not a miracle worker."

* * *

The soft whoosh of Caroline's shower tinkled in the distance as Jackie sat on the bride's bed with her back against the upholstered headboard. She was focusing hard on the task at hand, which was painting Donna's fingernails a deep, scarlet red.

"You don't think this color is too dark?" Donna held her free hand up to the light and admired the nail polish.

"Definitely not," Jackie said without looking up. "You need something dark to distract the eye from the size of your hands."

Donna sighed indulgently. "I _was_ about to say how nice it is hanging out with you. We don't get to do it so much anymore."

_We could have, if you hadn't ditched me._

"You're at school, I'm working at the station a lot...it's just life, I guess." Jackie was not in the mood to rock the boat. She didn't really see the point. If somebody wanted to be your friend, it shouldn't require that much effort. It should be a pleasure.

Donna's expression darkened slightly. "No. It's not just that. I've been a pretty crappy friend lately."

Jackie's head perked up at the admission.

_Am I still drunk?_

"I'm glad we got a few moments alone. I just...I wanted to apologize. I'm sorry, okay?"

Jackie wasn't sure of how to respond. "Okay..."

Donna pulled her hand away to force her friend's attention up. "I knew you were having a tough time and I just dropped the friendship ball, totally. I feel like a jerk."

"Yeah...you should." The pensive look that took hold melted almost immediately. "But I don't think Fez and I would've gotten as close as we did if you'd been around more, and I wouldn't trade that for anything."

"Does that mean I'm forgiven?" Donna visibly held her breath as she waited for an answer.

_What's the point in holding a grudge? She took you in off the streets when your life was falling apart. Give her a pass._

"I can't pretend I wasn't hurt, but I know people aren't perfect..." Jackie lifted the end of one of Donna's braids between her fingers and looked at it sadly. "Some of us are less perfect than others."

"So, are we cool?"

Jackie smiled and nodded, then dropped the hair. "Sure, we're cool."

A scheming grin overtook Donna's face. "Okay, good. Now, can you please tell me what the hell happened with Hyde last night?"

_That conniving little bitch! I'm almost proud of her._

She was dying to talk about this with somebody, and Fez was too preoccupied with his own wedding to be available to her. She'd bite, but there was no way she'd pretend to fall for this ruse. "You only made up with me so you could get the goods."

"That's not entirely true, Jackie!" Donna placed a hand over her heart, careful not to smudge the polish.

Raising one perfectly manicured eyebrow, Jackie cleared her throat. She'd make Donna work a little harder for this.

Donna scrunched up her face sheepishly. "Okay, that may have been _a _reason, but it wasn't the main one. I mean, I was planning on apologizing to you anyway this weekend, but this is as perfect a time as any."

"You're almost as bad as I am!" The two woman giggled at the admission.

"That's impossible, Jackie." Donna scooted back until she was sitting against the headboard. Her legs appeared comically oversized lined up next to her friend's significantly shorter ones.

"True. Okay. What do you want to know?"

"Well, for starters, you guys were barely on speaking terms the last time we all hung out."

Jackie thought back to the last time the entire group was together. It had been so long, she'd nearly forgotten what it felt like to be surrounded by friends. "Yeah. That was out of necessity...to avoid, you know, murdering him."

"How can you go from wanting to murder him to marrying him?" Donna's expectant look made Jackie feel a little sick inside.

_How could I go from wanting to kill him to loving him again? That's not normal, is it?_

She swallowed thickly, trying hard but failing to form a coherent answer. "I – I don't know."

Donna blew a stream of cold air onto her nails and shook out her hands. "I think I do."

"You do?" Her eyes widened with happy surprise.

_Great, then can you please let me in on it?_

"Sure. I sort of felt the same way about Eric when he dumped me while he was in Africa." She pulled her long legs up into Indian style and turned to face her friend. "I was pissed off, but I never stopped loving him. You probably just never stopped loving Hyde."

_Believe me, I tried. You have no idea how hard._

Jackie eyebrows bunched in thought. "But...what made you take him back? How did you know it would be different this time with him?"

Donna leaned her head back against the wall and considered the question. "I didn't."

_Okay, that wasn't the answer I was looking for._

"Steven – he's not Eric – and if you tell that pipsqueak what I'm about to say I'll deny it." Jackie cut Donna a sharp glance. "Eric is a great boyfriend. He's always been head-over-heels in love with you. All of us knew it, because it was so obvious in everything he did. The way he looked at you or talked about you to other people...everything. Even when you were apart, you never really doubted it, did you?"

"I had my doubts when he was in Africa, Jackie. I'm only human."

Jackie undid the elastics from the ends of Donna's hair and combed the waves out with her fingers. "I always doubted Steven loved me. In fact, when Sam showed up and everybody acted like it was no biggie that we had broken up after two years, it didn't surprise me at all. Why should you all think he ever cared when I didn't even know if he really did?"

"Eric knew. In fact, he's been harassing Hyde about it since he got home from Africa."

_Huh. Maybe I'll stop referring to him as a little troll for a few months._

"Really?" The news truly shocked her. "I honestly didn't think anybody noticed."

Donna's face contorted in shame. "We may not have all known how Hyde felt about you, but it was obvious how you felt about him. All of us should have been a lot kinder."

She waved her hand in front of Donna's face as if to push that part of the discussion away. "What I meant was, I never knew how he felt about me. Not really. And then he just shows up in Vegas on a lark, and tricks me into having this really deep discussion about life and regrets-"

"Wait – what?" Donna jerked forward to look Jackie in the face. "Hyde _tricked_ you into talking about your feelings? Like, he told you things about himself in sentences that were not monosyllabic or meant to be sarcastic?"

"That's right."

"That statement prompts so many questions, I just don't know where to start." Donna placed her head in her open palm.

_You think you're confused._

"You know, we did talk when we were together. He may not have been free with his feelings around everybody else, but he did talk to me. In his own way." Jackie pulled her knees up and hugged them to her body.

"Oh. I mean, I guess I'm not totally surprised. We all used to wonder what you guys did when you weren't having sex."

_Great. Nice to know everybody thought he was just banging me for all that time._

"We weren't always having sex." Jackie body checked Donna from the side. "Sometimes we talked about real stuff, like why he didn't want to meet WB at first or how I felt after my mom left – he was really sweet to me after it happened. And sometimes we'd just chat about stupid stuff, like his views on the FDA and farm subsidies. I guess since both of us were kind of orphans we only had each other to lean on."

Donna was contemplative. "I never thought about it that way. I guess I just didn't realize how deep things got between you."

_Neither did he._

"Yeah." As her head dropped onto Donna's shoulder, it was almost as if she were 17 again.

"But you don't want to stay married to him?"

"I don't know." Jackie's eyes pricked with tears. "I just don't trust him. I want to. I really do think he believes what he's saying, I'm just not sure he's capable of delivering on his promises."

"He really never checked out other girls when you were together, if that's what this is about."

"I know that's not why he cheated on me. I mean, I'm the most beautiful girl he's ever dated. Steven would only do something horrible like cheating out of revenge. Zen code."

Donna offered Jackie the edge of her shirt to wipe her tears, but Jackie hesitated in using it. "I haven't had you ruin any of my shirts in a while. Go to town."

Jackie lifted the hem of Donna's tattered, 'Joan Jett and the Runaways' t-shirt and dried her eyes. "I'm really doing you a favor here. This shirt is almost begging me to prevent you from ever wearing it again. What color is this anyway? Blurge?"

_She really needs to stop going to the mall with Eric._

As per usual, Donna ignored the slight. "If it makes you feel any better, I've never seen Hyde act like this. It's almost like he's possessed."

"Why do you think that is?" Jackie cleaned off the rest of her face and dropped the shirt edge.

Donna leaned in conspiratorially. "I know it sounds weird, but I think it had to do with the Formans' Christmas party. You were sitting in the corner by yourself, wearing that foxy, red dress, and I noticed he kept staring at you."

"He did?"

"Well, Kelso was there with Brooke and Betsy, I was with Eric, and Fez was there with Caroline. You guys were the only ones without dates. Then Kitty started in with her annual speech about how life is short and how the best gift you can ever give somebody at Christmas is your love...and then Hyde just started staring at you." She shrugged and leaned back again. "I just assumed he was waiting for you to look up so he could mock you about being alone to your face."

_Sounds about right._

"How do you know he wasn't?"

"Eric saw him palming this small, black box in his hand the whole afternoon. Later on, when we sneaked into his room to steal his stash, we saw the box sitting on the edge of his dresser."

"Was it – was it a ring box?" Jackie's chest tightened up at the possibility.

Donna narrowed her eyes. "How did you know that?"

"He said he bought me a ring when I left for Chicago." Though her eyes welled with tears again, she was smiling this time. "I figured he got rid of it, or maybe gave it to Sam."

A low whistle escaped Donna's lips. "It was some ring, let me tell you. That was not the kind of ring you give to a stripper."

_He wasn't lying. He actually was going to marry me._

The ring was real, even if she hadn't seen it with her own eyes. It was real, and as of two weeks ago, he still had it. What did that mean?

_Maybe if the ring is real, everything else is too? _

Jackie's lashes flicked up to look at her friend. "What would you do, if you were me?"

Donna's lips pursed as she pondered Jackie's situation. "Well, I guess it all boils down to one thing - can you see yourself being happy with him?"

Jackie closed her eyes and tried to imagine a life with Hyde. He wasn't flawless by any stretch of the imagination, but neither was she. It never mattered to her before, because the things that he did get right were so much righter than they could ever be with another man, that she could easily overlook his imperfections.

She'd always thought of him as an unhoned diamond, seeing the potential in him to shine when others couldn't. When he couldn't. Maybe that was always their problem? She had faith in him when he didn't.

_Why was it fine for Steven to encourage me to grow as a person, but not the other way around? It always made me feel good that he thought of me as more than just a pretty face, that he thought I had ability. _

Hyde never believed in himself. He may have passed it off as laziness, but she knew better. It was a fear of failure or disappointment. Maybe her investment in his development felt like a burden to him that he just couldn't live up to? He might have mistakenly assumed that her consistently high expectations of him translated into her being constantly disappointed.

She knew that there was so much more to him beneath the surface that he wasn't accessing, but she was never disappointed. Frustrated? Sure, but only on his behalf. It never even dawned on her that her brand of support could have been having the opposite affect.

Perhaps he didn't want to achieve his potential, he could have been perfectly contented exactly where he was. Maybe they didn't want the same things out of life?

Jackie always dreamt of creating the perfect family for herself – as a parent – since she had missed her shot at experiencing it as a child. She wanted that for him too, but did he?

It was possible he didn't see himself living a life filled with backyard BBQs and snuggling with kids in bed on the weekends, but were those things she really needed?

_Yes._

A hand yanked abruptly on Jackie's arm, pulling her from her reverie. "Hey! Space cadet! Caroline is calling you."

Jackie's eyes refocused and she pulled herself up to stand.

"Jackie!" A voice called out from behind the bathroom door.

Donna grimaced at the abrasive tenor of Caroline's cry and waved her friend on with empathy.

* * *

Jackie pushed open the door with ease, only to find Caroline lying on the floor next to the toilet, looking green.

_Fez sooo fucking owes me for this._

"Oh no. You ate the armadillo." She grabbed a hand towel off of the rack and ran it under the cold tap until it was soaked through, then wrung it out and pressed it to Caroline's forehead.

"Thanks, Jackie." The bride held the compress to her forehead, then leaned her back against the side of the tub, before angling her head to the side in question. "What armadillo?"

"At lunch?" Jackie wondered if there was even a tactful way to bring this up and then decided she didn't really care. "You fed everybody roadkill at lunch."

_Well, she did._

Caroline threw her head back and laughed. "That wasn't roadkill, Jackie, it was tripe."

"Tripe? Like, intestines?" Jackie's face squished up in disgust. "That's worse."

Blonde wet hair stuck to Caroline's elegant neck, soaking the white, fluffy towel that was wrapped around her body. "I know it's kind of gross, but I just...I don't know. I thought it would make Fez happy."

_That's kind of sweet, actually. Repulsive, but sweet._

"I'm sure it did, especially with him not having any parents around for the wedding. It probably doesn't even feel real without his parents being here."

Jackie knew she wasn't just talking about Fez.

"He doesn't know the truth yet. About me, I mean." Caroline wiped her mouth with the washcloth and took a deep breath.

_That you're insane? That you have an obsession with serial killers and have threatened every attractive woman who has ever spoken to him? I think he knows, Caroline. It would be impossible not to._

Jackie suddenly realized she had no idea what Caroline was actually talking about. "I don't think I know the truth about you either."

The bride smoothed her damp hair back into a low bun, but left it unfastened. "I don't know if you've noticed, but my mood had been a little...erratic lately."

_No shit._

"I hadn't."

_Stay on her good side. No use pissing off a crazy person. You'll only make yourself a target. _

Caroline's head fell forward and her lip began to quiver. "It's hormonal."

_What the what?_

Jackie dropped to her knees beside the unstable girl. "You're pregnant?"

She heard a high pitched whimper emerge as Caroline nodded.

"And Fez doesn't know?" As Caroline shook her head, Jackie grabbed both of Caroline's shoulders, to force to look up. "Honey, what are you worried about? Fez asked you to marry him ages ago. He obviously loves you. I mean, it may be a bit sooner than you expected, but having a baby is something you both want, right?"

Caroline's giant gobstopper eyes opened in Jackie's direction. "You don't think he's going to be mad?"

"Are you kidding? Now Michael won't have anything to lord over him anymore! You having a baby will make him cock of the walk." Caroline laughed, bringing Jackie with her. "And he's going to make a great dad."

The bride-to-be wiped her eyes with the washcloth. "He will, won't he?"

Jackie smiled broadly. "The best. You're really lucky, you know that right?"

_Maybe she won't kill him in his sleep as we all suspected?_

Caroline nodded back.

The door opened with a creak and both women turned their heads. "I thought maybe you could use a soda or something." Donna held up a can of coke and a straw. "It sounded like you were getting pretty sick in here."

"Thanks, Donna. That's really decent of you." She smiled reluctantly at her supposed nemesis and waved her over. "I'm assuming you heard us talking?"

Donna opened the can and handed it to Caroline with the straw. "Neither of you are what I'd refer to as 'quiet talkers'."

At that description, Jackie chimed in loudly. "Ooh! You know what you need? Food. Like, non-disgusting food. My mom's been pregnant a few times, and even though it seems like it wouldn't, eating always helps." Jackie stood up and offered Donna her seat on the floor.

Donna grabbed onto Jackie's leg. "I didn't realize your mom had so many miscarriages."

_Miscarriages? Ha._

"She didn't." Jackie left the bathroom before Donna had a chance to ask any followup questions.

* * *

Jackie opened up the door to leave the junior suite and nearly walked directly into Hyde, who was carrying a pizza box.

"What are you doing here?" She didn't realize how much she'd missed his company until that moment.

Hyde awkwardly shoved the pizza box into her hands. "You really didn't eat anything earlier besides ice cream. It's been hours."

_It almost seems like he's worried about me._

Jackie's heartbeat picked up as she took the weight of the box in her small hands. "If it makes you any less worried, I've gone days without eating."

"Who said I'm worried?" He startled her with the forcefulness of his reflexive response, then seemed to regret it almost immediately. "Maybe I was. A little."

_Oh my God, he really is worried about me!_

She carefully shut the door behind them and then slid down the wall with the pizza in her hands. The scent of melted cheese was overwhelmingly appealing, especially after 20 minutes on the floor of the bathroom with her vomiting friend.

Before she'd even opened the box, her mouth began to water. She practically tore the lid off to grab her first slice. "Thank you, Steven."

_I could fall in love with him again solely for bringing me this pizza._

Hyde pulled two bottles of beer from his back pockets and opened them before joining her on the hallway floor. "Why'd you go days without eating?"

Jackie swallowed the huge bite she had eaten and reached for her beer. "Oh, the usual...cheerleading tryouts...prom...side comments about my weight made by Pamela Burkhart at the dinner table..."

He shook his head. "What a cunt."

Jackie almost choked on her beer.

Hyde patted her on the back until the coughing slowed. "Sorry. I know she's your mom and all..."

"True, but she's also a cunt. A big one."

He started to laugh but was cut off by a kiss.

"I think I missed you." Jackie grinned and took another bite of pizza.

He looked stunned by her admission, but then played it off in his usual manner. "Obviously."

She sighed heavily and finished the piece of pizza in one bite.

"You took down that slice like an anaconda when it unhinges its jaw. Nice." Hyde clinked the neck of his beer bottle against hers and chugged half of it in one go. "First beer of the day, by the way."

_This must be what it looks like when he's trying. Interesting._

As she watched him drink, she was reminded of their earlier conversation. "You don't have to answer to me about when or how much you drink."

"I'm aware of that, Jackie. I just figured...whatever." He focused his attention on peeling the label off the beer.

_Great, now I'm making him feel inadequate again._

She leaned her head on Hyde's shoulder and took his hand. "I just meant, you don't have to change who you are just to get me to stay with you. You should do whatever makes you happy, Steven."

She noticed him grinning at her through her peripheral vision.

"I meant, besides that. Horndog." She slapped his leg lightly.

"You're the one who was practically assaulting me in the concert hall." He gave her a fake sad face. "I felt violated."

Jackie rolled her eyes hard. "Yeah, you seemed really traumatized."

They sat in amicable silence while they both finished their beers. Hyde looked like he badly wanted to say something, but was holding back.

She knew that look on his face well. He had something important he needed to get off his chest. "Just spit it out already, Steven. What's the worst that could happen?"

A self-deprecating laugh slipped from his lips. "Uh, you could say no."

"True, but I could also say yes, depending on what it is." Her eyes met his and he looked away quickly and shook his head. Whatever it was, he wasn't going to ask and she wouldn't push him to.

_Say something, Jackie. By this time tomorrow, you'll be headed for the airport. You've got to figure all of this out by then._

"Caroline's knocked up. I found her on the floor of the bathroom puking."

_What the hell is wrong with me? I was supposed to say something, not 'anything'._

Hyde's eyebrow shot up. "Seriously? Fez didn't say a thing."

She placed her empty bottle to the side. "Yeah, that's because he doesn't know yet."

"I know Fez is gonna be a daddy before Fez does?" He looked at her with incredulity and she nodded, putting a giant smile on his face. "This is going to be, like, the most epic burn ever."

Jackie's eyes blinked rapidly and she grabbed his arm in a panic. "Steven, no!"

"Come on. Do I look like that big of an asshole to you?"

"Sometimes?" She tilted her hand. "You did say the only way you'd ever get married is if you knocked a girl up."

"Guess I was wrong. Unless..." he wrapped an arm around her and whispered,"You're not pregnant, are you?"

_Just ask him about kids already!_

She cleared her throat nervously and licked her lips before speaking. "Do you even want kids?"

He tensed up next to her and pulled the rest of the label from his beer bottle. "I really never thought about it."

"Bullshit."

_He once said he'd be too afraid to fuck up a kid with his crappy parenting skills. _

Hyde bristled at her calling him out. "Fine. Then I guess it depends on who's asking."

Jackie swallowed hard before speaking. "What if it's me asking?"

He looked up at her for a moment and then back down at the now bald bottle. "I don't know. You're probably the only chick who might get a yes out of me. Why? You still want kids?"

She nodded, feeling vaguely ashamed of her answer for no apparent reason. Why was she embarrassed to tell him what she wanted? This was something important to her.

"I want a family one day," Jackie started, kneading her hands anxiously as she spoke. "I don't care how many, as long as it's more than one, so they'll never be alone." She felt his arm tighten around her. "And I don't care who they look like – obviously, you know, it's better for them socially if they look like me – but I'd love them even if they weren't perfect. I'd really like to have dinner once a week with the whole extended family. Obviously, my parents would never be there, but if my kids' father has parents, it might be nice to have grandparents around. The more people, the better."

She felt a pair of lips graze her temple and she froze. "That sounds pretty cool."

Her chest began to heave as she built to courage to look him in the eye. "Really?"

He was breathing nearly as hard as she was when she finally looked up at him. "Yeah."

Jackie eyes began to water as she laughed in relief, marveling at their collective pathos. "We really are the two saddest people in the universe, aren't we?"

Hyde kissed her temple again and wiped her eyes with his hands. "Who are you calling sad?"

She shook her head through the laughter. "It's just, normal people just take all of this stuff for granted. They don't get it."

"They don't." He held her face in his hands and looked into her eyes. "Their loss."

Time hung in the air like a bad joke without a punch line. She knew there was more he wanted to say, he'd been anxious since the moment he handed her the pizza. "Just ask me, Steven."

Hyde's courage wavered a moment, but he took a fortifying breath and pushed through. His voice was quiet but steady, much like his affection had been since they'd reconnected the night before. "Do you still love me, Jackie?"

She nodded slowly and he kissed her until they both ran out of breath.

* * *

**A/N2 - Well, we're almost at the end. Thanks again to all of you who are reading, especially those who have marked this as a favorite fic or subscribed to it. The comments (both registered users and anonymous) are all very much appreciated too. I hope this story is still satisfying your Zennie sweet tooth. Lemme know!**


	9. I Found a New Love

**A/N - Sorry about the delay! To make up for the wait, I've supersized the chapter and given you the ****sMut many of you have been clamoring for. **

**FYI - This chapter is rated M (naughty stuff if toward the end of the chapter).**

* * *

**CHAPTER 9 **

**_Last night._**

_With his bulging cerulean eyes and blonde 'white man's afro', the officiant at the 'Love Me Tonight' wedding chapel made for an eerily accurate Tom Jones impersonator. Being married by a close facsimile of the man known as 'The Voice' was included in the package, an__ extra flourish that Jackie found intermittently both comforting and creepy. As __she stood in the middle of the ceremony room, holding hands with her soon-to-be husband, faux Tom Jones strangely seemed like the only thing that wasn't completely surreal, her beacon of normalcy in the middle of the chaos that was her life._

_Whatever kind of constant the faux Tom Jones provided for her, it was working, because Jackie was actually going through with this, even if the whole thing seemed too much like a farce to be real. That had been her intention from the get-go. If she wasn't going to have everything she wanted, she would have nothing she wanted. Mediocrity was not an adjective that would ever be associated with the name 'Jackie Burkhart'._

_Jerry-in-the-tacky-suit served as Hyde's witness, and – in what comprised possibly the oddest wedding party ever – Jerry's fiancee (a delicate confection in wedding white) stood up for the bride, who was dressed in a revealing pink frock. Never one to completely buck tradition, Jackie had, at least, borrowed her witness's veil. Two brides, a poorly-dressed snake oil salesman, faux Tom Jones and a burnout wearing aviators was a strange mix, even by Las Vegas standards._

"_And now, we'll read the benedictions, starting with the groom," the minister said in his lilting fake Welsh accent, as he handed over a 3x5" laminated, index card with several years worth of fingerprints and yellowing, curled plastic edges._

"_This is a joke, right?" From Hyde's expression, it would be an easy mistake to assume he'd just been handed a sack of dog shit. _

_One verse of the Tom Jones' song 'Help Yourself' was printed proudly in the middle of the card, framed by a hand-drawn square of gold glitter paint. The word 'groom' was helpfully hand-written on the back in a black Sharpie marker, in case there was any confusion._

_Jackie stood on her toes and tried to catch a glimpse of the card, which Hyde pressed against his chest protectively. _

"_Excuse you." An amused smile tugged at his lips and he cleared his throat, before beginning to read the words off of the card in a determined monotone._

_Just help yourself to my lips  
To my arms just say the word, and they are yours  
Just help yourself to the love,  
In my heart, your smile has opened up the door_

_Hyde pressed his lips together to avoid breaking down in laughter, nearly setting Jackie off in the process. He nudged her with his elbow and she nudged him back a little harder._

"_Very nice." The minister retrieved Hyde's card, and pulled a different one out of his stack for Jackie to use. She looked down at the card and then back up at her groom, who shifted his weight back and forth on his feet. A thin sheen of sweat formed on his brow, and she fleetingly wondered whether it was the result of nerves or the heat from the desert sun. _

_Jackie could hear her heart beating loudly in her ear as a wave of dizziness hit. Hyde clung tightly to her hand, holding her steady until she regained her footing. Her chest was tight with nerves, but an intangible urge compelled her to continue. _

_The greatest wealth that exists in the world,  
Could never buy what I can give  
Just help yourself to my lips  
To my arms, and then let's really start to live _

_The card was passed back to the officiant, and Jackie released a long, sustained breath._

"_Almost there, princess." Hyde squeezed her hand and pulled her slightly closer to him. _

_The minister leaned back and popped an 8-track single of 'She's a Lady' into the dated stereo, then adjusted the volume to half-mast. "If you have rings you'd like to exchange, now would be the time to do it."_

_Hyde pulled both of them out of his pocket and handed Jackie his 14K gold, giant skull ring with tiny diamond chips for eyes, and kept her cigar band ring himself. _

"_I barely remember picking this out." She marveled at the metallic creation in her hand before slipping it onto Hyde's ring finger. "It's quite the specimen."_

"_Yep. It's pretty badass." He lifted Jackie's left hand and – with a little difficulty – squeezed the overly-thick wedding ring onto her tiny fourth finger. _

_They looked at their hands and then back up at each other. Jackie was the first to giggle, but Hyde quickly followed. It felt like their middle school production of 'Seven Brides for Seven Brothers', except this time, Jackie's ring wasn't made of plastic. She hoped._

"_Something wrong?" The minister regarded them both with a cautious eye._

_Hyde grinned to himself while admiring his new hardware. "Nope. Everything's perfect."_

___"Imperfectly perfect," she corrected._

_Watching Hyde staring at his ring, Jackie was seized by an overwhelming, visceral need to climb into his lap and curl up against his chest like a pussy cat for the next week. Maybe she missed the daily comfort of his touch, or maybe she'd just been listening too carefully to the Tom Jones album on the speaker system?_

"_By the power invested in me by the city of Las Vegas in the great state of Nevada, I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride."_

_Hyde covered Jackie's mouth with his own well before the minister gave them the go ahead. With her jaw nestled in his strong hands and his soft tongue brushing up against hers, she could barely think past the sensations he was creating in her body. This was a good thing, because thinking about what just happened was the last thing she wanted. _

_Her fingers curved around Hyde's broad shoulders and held on harder than she had ever clung to anything before. She could feel her digits pushing through his skin, reaching all the way to the bone, but he didn't complain. He simply continued to kiss her like his life depended on it, because in many ways, she knew it did. _

_They finally came up for air, but Hyde wasn't ready to release Jackie yet. He continued holding her face in his hands and stared at her with a look of devotion and wonder she'd only seen men have in movies. It was the way George Peppard looked at Audrey Hepburn in 'Breakfast at Tiffany's'. It was the way that Clark Gable gazed at Vivian Leigh in 'Gone With the Wind'. It was the was Steven Hyde was looking at Jackie Burkhart right now. Her life finally had the romance she always knew she was destined for._

"_I'm not going to mess things up this time, Jackie." Hyde murmured against her lips, loud enough that only she could hear. He punctuated his promise by kissing her so hard, he literally swept her off of her feet._

_Jackie quickly wrapped her arms around his neck to prevent from falling, then pressed her forehead into his and grinned. "I know you won't...because if you do, they'll never find your body."_

* * *

**Present. **

Jackie's maid of honor dress was beige, and not the 'good beige,' even if that even existed, which it didn't. No. Her dress was the hue of a mid-priced couch, a blanched almond color that could not be found in nature.

When Caroline first brought Jackie the dress, Jackie had actually laughed in her face, assuming the gown to be some kind of sick joke. Long poufy sleeves and an unflattering hem length were only the start of its problems. The material was a cheap lace that had the audacity to try and masquerade as expensive, but failed miserably. The cut was like something out of a Victorian-era drama, but less sexy.

In retrospect, she felt kind of bad about the laughter, but how was she to know that there were people out there who actually had taste_ that _bad? It's not like she socialized with any of them.

Half a bottle of wine and an hour later, when Fez had finally managed to calm Caroline down, Jackie did the right thing and sucked up her pride. She told the bride that she was just kidding, and that the dress was divine, something out of a dream (a nightmare, in her case).

_I think I even said 'stitched by the angels', and yet she still thought I was serious. Fez looked at me like he wanted to bleach my hair._

Jackie would have the last word on it though, as she always did. When Caroline told her she could have the dress altered to fit her, she wasn't specific. Probably the worst mistake she could have made, because Jackie took the directive liberally. $40 dollars and a few weeks later, the gown was nearly unrecognizable. But Jackie looked hot, and that's really all that mattered.

_She'll thank me in the end. Who wants ugly wedding pictures?_

As she leaned over to straighten the line on the back of her shimmery, silver-toned stockings, she heard a knock at the door. "You have the key!"

The door opened slowly and a pair of waxy, black Oxfords walked directly toward her. "Steven?"

She lifted her head, and couldn't help the smile that seemed to charge through her entire body. "You look amazing!"

"Oh, this old thing?" Fez took a twirl to show himself off and then flopped down on the bed to watch his roommate finish getting ready. "Hyde loaned me the key. Interesting that Hyde has the key to your room, yes?"

Jackie straightened herself up and stalled for time by dusting off the folds in her dress. She was dying to talk to her best friend about everything, but this was _his _day, and if there were anything she would die defending, it was the sanctity of being treated like visiting royalty on your wedding day. For once, she wouldn't give into the temptation to make this about her.

Just as she was she was formulating a vague-yet-plausible excuse, she was distracted by a high pitched gasp.

"Ai! Caroline is going to kill you."

_Guess he noticed my alterations..._

Jackie snorted and did a twirl of her own to show off her dress. "That's not news. Caroline has been plotting ways to kill me for weeks now."

_Fez once stalked a pair of tight, red pants for three months until they went on sale. He's got to understand my predicament._

Fez's expression morphed from alarmed to aroused in a flat second. "Well, if she does kill you, you are going to go out looking like a shimmering beige goddess."

Jackie wrinkled her nose at the image and perched herself gingerly on the very edge of the bed next to him, mindful not to crease her dress. "I would never leave a poorly dressed corpse...even if it killed me."

Pulling a box of Mike & Ike's from his jacket's breast pocket, Fez tipped it in her direction. "Candy?"

She shook her head. "I had the seamstress make this dress beyond tight - because it really makes my ass 'pop' - but there's no way I can eat in it. Also, this blah color stains easily...though that might actually be an improvement. I'm pretty lucky Steven came by with that pizza earlier, because I have a feeling I won't be consuming anything but air until I take this ridiculous thing off."

Fez expertly tossed a few candies into the air and they landed in his mouth with a satisfying crunch. "Ah yes, that reminds me..._are you fucking crazy_?"

Jackie's eyes grew with apprehension as she watched her roommate change from a light brown color to more of a 'burnt sienna' hue.

"Uh...maybe? I don't know? How am I supposed to answer you when I don't even know what you're talking about." She laughed musically like she'd seen her mother do on so many occasions when she'd been busted for sleeping with somebody inappropriate.

_Steven's not inappropriate, is he?_

"Phooey!" Fez's mouth was pinched into a scowl and he pointed his finger right in her face.

"Oh, would you be chill?" Jackie slapped his hand away flippantly.

"No. I will absolutely not be chill! I will stay very warm. Hot even!" He leapt off of the bed and began to pace the swath of plush carpet at the foot of it. "This morning, Caroline came back to the room after telling me she was going to be hanging out with you, and when I asked her why she was back, do you know what she said?"

"That she is a huge blabber mouth and needs to have her tongue ripped out and fed to pigeons?" Jackie held her hand out to admire her manicure.

"No, she said you had company. _Company_, goddess. As if I don't know what that means." Fez crossed his arms over his chest and huffed. "You have not had 'company' since that exquisitely built male model, and that was six months ago. I knew the person in your bed could not be somebody random."

Jackie awkwardly rose from the bed with indignity, and attempted to avoid Fez's wrath by obsessing over the non-existent wrinkles in her dress. "What? It's inconceivable that I would have brought a random stranger from the casino bar back to my room to have casual sex?"

She may as well have been speaking Fez's native language, because what she was saying sounded like gibberish, even to her.

"I have lived with you for two years, Jackie. You don't know how to do anything casual! You even wear heels to the breakfast table!"

"Maybe I got really drunk?" She walked briskly past Fez toward the mirror and busied herself with touching up her already flawless makeup. She needed something to do or she would lose her mind. "Maybe some cowboy wanted to give me a ride on his pony?"

_Why am I even bothering to argue this? He knows. It's a done deal._

Fez was momentarily distracted. "Ooh. I love ponies."

He smiled off into the distance, and Jackie took the opportunity to make a run for the bathroom.

"Not so fast!" His voice called sharply after her.

Jackie froze in her tracks and slowly pivoted to face Fez.

He leaned his back against the nearest wall and closed his eyes. "I knew this was going to happen. Hyde got you drunk and took advantage of your vulnerability and horniness. If it were not for my wedding taking place in an hour, I would challenge him to a duel to defend your honor. And by duel, I am, of course, referring to thumb-wrestling."

Knowing Fez was willing to castigate his much bigger friend over her virtue, made Jackie feel incredibly guilty for upsetting him. She dug her toes into the carpet, absentmindedly carving the shape of the letters 'J' and 'S' in the tall pile and tried to think of anything she could say that might make him feel better about her situation.

_Is it too late for a really elaborate lie? What am I talking about? Of course it's not too late._

"It wasn't Steven, Fez." The muscles in her face ached from holding a poker face. It wasn't in her nature to play coy.

_Think think think think think..._

He threw his hands in the air in frustration. "Jackie, I asked Caroline point blank, and she admitted it."

_Think think think think think..._

"Yes..." Jackie straightened her back and walked with purpose to where Fez was leaning. "I could see how she might have mistaken the man for Hyde, but it wasn't Hyde, Fez. It was...another burnout with an afro."

He glared at her with dead eyes. "Do you expect me to believe you gave yourself to two different men with no fashion sense and bad hair?"

"I was really drunk." Jackie smiled a toothy grin and prayed Fez was having one of his 'stupid' days. He usually lost a few IQ points when he'd been spending time with Kelso.

Fez mumbled an expletive in his native tongue as he pushed himself off the wall, then walked Jackie by her shoulders over to the full-length mirror and continued fussing over her hair aggressively. "I should have seen this coming after the strange way Hyde acted during Thanksgiving."

"What do you mean by strange? Besides the obvious, I mean."

"Do you remember when Miss Kitty made us go around and say what we were thankful for that year?"

Jackie stared at herself in the mirror and noticed a tiny smile line that hadn't been there the year before. "Of course. I said Halston."

"Yes, and I said candy, which put me in the dog house with Caroline for the rest of the night." Off Jackie's look he continued, "she thought it was an old girlfriend."

"Oh yeah, that's right! She even made you sit at the kid's table with Betsy and Kelso." Jackie snickered at the memory until Fez tugged a little too roughly on her hair.

"Well the joke was on her, because that happened to be the fun table. And we all got seconds of pie. Anyway, do you remember what Hyde said when it was his turn?"

_I remember he looked so hot I had to go outside to cool down._

She thought back to that evening, her brow pulled taut with consternation. He hadn't been himself. He was unusually quiet - even for him - and hadn't tried to burn her once, which she's assumed was the latest psychological tactic he was employing in his never-ending quest to destroy her psyche.

"He always answers the same way every year: his Camino." She flipped her hair and Fez rushed to secure it back into the pearl comb she was wearing.

He held the comb between his teeth and smoothed her dark locks into place. "Hyde also said he was thankful for 'second acts'."

"I don't remember that. Anyway, I'm sure he was just talking about bands, Fez." She picked a few pieces of lint off of her chest, hoping he wouldn't notice her voice wavering.

"He was looking right at you." Fez's empathetic gaze met hers in the mirror and a blush crept up her neck.

_I was looking at him, too._

At first, Jackie thought she'd imagined it, but as Hyde's eyes burned into her, and he spoke the words 'second acts', a familiar fire ignited in her belly that had been dormant for nearly a year. She figured she had to be going crazy, reading into things that weren't there. After all, hadn't that been her MO for the entirely of their relationship? She saw a connection between them that obviously didn't exist. Her judgement couldn't be trusted.

"So what? I'm hot, people stare." She challenged Fez with a haughty tilt to her chin.

"Hyde had something in his pocket that he kept pawing at. I thought it was a dime bag. But when it got to be your turn, the thing fell out of his pocket." Fez took a step back and circled Jackie, depositing a fine cloud of light hold spray around her head. "It was a troll doll."

Her jaw dropped and her stomach dropped along with it.

Fez covered his own locks with a spritz of hairspray. "Weird, no? I mean, yes, it is true, Hyde is very much like a grumpy troll who lives under a bridge and yells obscenities at people, but he doesn't like to play with dolls. Trust me, I've tried."

"Yeah, so have I." Jackie shrugged, thinking of the one time she tried to show him how cute they'd look in matching denim outfits by demonstrating the look on Malibu Barbie and Ken.

_I thought for a minute he was going to give in until he called them Barbie and Kendra and then tossed them both to Schottzie to play with._

"I asked him about it later, and he hit me so hard I had a bruise on my arm for a week. It hurt every time I moved it. It made pleasuring myself a very uncomfortable experience." Fez fished into his coat pocket and produced her room key card, which Jackie was now loathe to touch. She gestured for him to put it on the side table.

Jackie's face screwed into a moue. "That's disgusting."

_Steven was probably doing Fez a favor. The muscles in his right forearm are already way overdeveloped compared to his left. _

"I know, right?" He blinked innocently at Jackie, misconstruing her meaning. "So when Caroline told me you had a gentleman visitor, I just knew it was him."

"Hey..." She narrowed her eyes at him with suspicion. "I thought you told him not to come."

"I did!" Fez shrugged and stepped in front of Jackie at the mirror, then licked his ring finger and smoothed down his eyebrows. "Usually, he's so intimidated by me, so I have no idea what went wrong this time."

Her head fell back and she stared at the ceramic popcorn ceiling. All the rooms had them, even the suites. From the many hours she'd recently spent on her back, she'd practically memorized the amorphous shapes and blobs they created. Like clouds in the sky, they were almost a sort of Rorschach test. Her eye was drawn to a blob in the shape of a heart, and she mentally slapped herself for being such a hopeless romantic.

"Do you think I'm being an idiot?"

Fez stood thoughtfully for a moment and then looked back up at Jackie. "Do you think I'm an idiot for Marrying Caroline? I know you all think she's crazy."

_YES!_

Jackie thought carefully before answering the question. She's didn't want to upset Fez on his big day, but she couldn't lie to him either. "She's...a little crazy, but luckily it's mostly just for you."

_Good save, Burkhart!_

"She makes me feel special. Nobody has ever made me feel as special as she does." He smiled to himself. "Usually, women just tolerate me until they trade up."

"Well, if she can appreciate what an amazing person you are, then I guess she's smarter than she looks." Jackie bit her lip as she smoothed the lapel of Fez's suit. "Do you think Steven thinks I'm special?"

"Considering that magnificent bastard is high practically every moment he's awake, and claims nothing rattles him...I would say hell yes." His laugh rang out high and loud. "You drive him absolutely insane, Jackie. He acts like Eric when he is around you. People don't fly to Las Vegas for average ladies, especially not men like Hyde."

_He has a point._

"Maybe it's just because I'm familiar and he doesn't like to meet new people? You know how much Steven hates people, Fez." She clung to his arm and stared up into his face for guidance.

"Sam lives in Las Vegas. Do you not think he would rather be having sex with a less complicated and sluttier woman who has the sexual agility of a sideshow contortionist?"

"I'm complicated?" she asked, choosing to skip over the non-Jackie parts of the sentence.

"That was your take away?" Fez ran his hands down the sides of her arms and tried valiantly to hold back his bemused laughter. "Goddess, you are complicated and difficult like a young Elizabeth Taylor."

Jackie gasped so loudly she was sure the people in the next hotel on The Strip could hear her.

_I AM like Liz Taylor! And Steven is Richard Burton! How could I not have seen it until now?_

"Oh Fez..." Jackie threw her arms around his neck and held on with reverence. "You always know the right thing to say."

"Ai!" he wailed in pain.

Jackie released Fez immediately and backed away to find the source of his discomfort. "What happened?"

"Something sharp on your hand was pressing hard into my...ooooh pretty!" He took her hand in his and ran a finger back and forth over the smooth cigar band. "Where did you get this glorious man ring?"

She looked down at her exposed ring finger and her hand twitched. "Uh, I, uh...found it. On the floor...of the casino...bathroom."

_Gah! I went one descriptive too far!_

"I never find anything good on the floor of the men's bathroom, and believe me, I am on my hands and knees in there a lot."

She grimaced at the filofax of possible scenarios flipping through her head, then shook them loose from her memory.

Jackie tried to pull her hand back, which only made Fez grip it harder. "Wait a minute! What were _you _doing on the floor of the men's bathroom? You Jezebel!"

"Fezzy, gross! You know I refuse to use public toilets, much less roll around on the floor of a common area bathroom, like Laurie Forman." She closed her eyes and tried to will him to move to a different topic.

"Then how did you get this astounding man ring?" Fez held her hand up to the light to admire the craftsmanship, then suddenly dropped it. "Jackie, you lying whore! This is no man ring, it is way too tiny around to be a man ring...though I'm sure if I tried hard enough, I could fit it on my pinky." He held his pinky up next to her ring finger to compare.

_Getting busted by an ugly piece of jewelry is like rubbing salt in the wound._

The wheels in Jackie's mind worked furiously trying to create an alternate explanation for the new bauble. Just as she had organized something Fez might find believable, her mind flashed back to the look of pure joy on Steven's face as he slid the ring onto her finger. He was happy, and she felt happy at that moment, too. It was real, and even if she was fuzzy on the details, how she felt at that moment was as clear as a flawless diamond.

"It's not a man ring Fez," she admitted, with downcast eyes.

His face hardened and his eyes raked over her guilty-looking features. "Ai. Please do not tell me you did something stupid."

She wasn't sure how to answer that question, when she wasn't even sure of her own feelings. If she said it was stupid, that would mean that she wanted to annul the marriage, but if she said it wasn't, she was admitting to herself that she wanted to stay married to Hyde, and she wasn't ready to make that call. "To be determined..."

Fez rubbed his forehead roughly, and sighed with a heavy sadness. "Oh Jackie. This is...this is not the way you should have done this."

"It's not? Because it was totally how I had it planned out since I was twelve," she snapped. "Sorry. It's not your fault. You're only saying what I'm thinking myself."

"But, you do seem...kind of happy, which worries me a little, frankly."

"Why?"

"What if it does not work out?" He held her by her shoulders to force her to look at him. "Because, let's face it, it probably will not."

"Way to stay positive." She pulled his hands down and stood up from where she was leaning.

"You can't stay married to him, Jackie." Fez shook her slightly to get her attention. "He hurt you many times before, and he will probably do it again. Anyway, does he even want the same things you want? Will he give you the white wedding of your dreams? You deserve perfection."

"There's no such thing as perfection, Fez – except for my hair, of course – and maybe my dream isn't really what will make me happy anyway?"

"Does it hurt to wait for things to be the way you want them to be? You won't even leave the house unless you have the right shade of nail polish to match your outfit, but you are willing to settle for this? What on Earth are you thinking?"

"I'm...I don't know what I'm thinking." She sunk her feet into the carpet again and combed a question mark in it with her toes.

There was a knock at the door and Jackie rushed over to answer it. "Hi."

Steven, in a white dinner jacket with black pants and unmade tie, entered the suite and gave an impressed whistle as he looked around. "These are our new digs? This is bigger than my apartment."

Fez glared at Hyde, and then looked back at Jackie with a soft expression before heading toward the door. Just as he passed through the door jam, he turned on his heels and strode right back into the room. "If you don't make it work this time, we're going to have to separate the two of you like the colors in a bag of Skittles, never to be mixed again!" Without further comment, he rushed from the suite.

Jackie followed him to the door and called out to him as he stomped down the hallway. "Come on, Fez..."

"I said Skittles!" Fez spared one last cautionary glance for Jackie and then turned the corner.

* * *

Jackie shut the door behind her and walked directly into Hyde's waiting arms.

"You look...off the hook." Hyde's eyes hungrily toured the length of her body, then slowly made their way back up again.

"Thank you Steven, though this would look better in an actual color." She walked over to the full-length mirror to put in her earrings. "Who has a white-on-beige wedding, anyway? If this were my wedding, I'd have all of the bridesmaids in lavender. It's one of the only colors that Donna doesn't look washed out in."

_Of course, I'm probably never having a real wedding now._

He stood behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. "So...you've gotta be pissed you got gyped out of doing the whole wedding thing, after all that planning?"

_Ya think?_

She shrugged her shoulders and stared at the earring in her hand for a moment. "Who would we invite? Who would walk me down the aisle? It's not like my dad can get a day pass." She brought the earring up to her ear and slipped it through the hole. "Maybe this was a blessing in disguise? It's less depressing to not remember it, than to remember it and wish it were different."

Hyde kissed the back of her shoulder and rested his forehead against it. "I'm sorry, doll."

Jackie secured the earring and turned her head to the side. "You never wanted to get married, Steven."

"Yeah, but you did." His warm breath pushing through the material on the back of her dress soothed her nerves. "I'm sorry you got screwed out of something you wanted."

"It wouldn't be the first time."

Before he could respond, she bent down to slip on a pair of beige, strappy pumps, but had trouble reaching her feet.

"Crap. This dress is too tight to bend in. This must be how Donna feels when she isn't wearing those diaper jeans."

"Why don't you try again? I'm sure you could probably reach if you tried harder." Hyde sounded encouraging – and he was – it was just in the most perverted way possible.

Jackie noticed Hyde smirking behind her through the reflection in the mirror. He was obviously hoping to catch another glimpse of her ass as she bent over. She shook her head, scolding him weakly, and he answered with a sheepish smile.

_Why does he have to look so cute when I bust him? It makes it so much harder to pretend to be mad._

"You bend again in that dress and we're never gonna make it out of this room." Hyde knelt down next to her feet and fastened the first shoe for her, then dragged his lips along the line of her calf. "Let me help you out there."

"That tickles." She giggled a bit and placed her hands on his shoulders for balance.

"It's supposed to." He took the other shoe and slipped her foot into it and closed the straps, then leaned forward and peppered her knee with tiny kisses as his other hand wandered up the inside of her leg.

"Beige 'old lady lace' really gets you going, huh?" Jackie couldn't decide what was sexier, the way he was touching her or the way he looked at her while he was doing it.

"_You _get me going. I've had a hard on since you jumped me at that shit concert this afternoon." His hand wandered further up her thigh.

"Aww, were those pants a little tight on you?" She pouted her lips.

"Not any tighter than that dress." Hyde took a moment to appreciate her shape. "I'm pretty sure it's bad form to look hotter than the bride."

His head collapsed against her belly and a warm feeling began to stir between her thighs. Her hands fell into his hair and gently curled the locks around her fingers, and he leaned into the contact.

_Nice to know some things never change...and people always thought we were late for parties because I couldn't decide what to wear._

"Jackie..." He wrapped his arms around her hips and rubbed the backs of her thighs with his hands.

"Steven...we have a wedding to go to." Her words were admonishing, but the way she was touching the back of his neck was beyond encouraging.

"It's not for an hour."

"But I can't get dirty."

He leaned back and grinned up at her. "You can't get _messy, _but you can definitely get dirty."

"You're the worst," she said, in an entirely unconvincing tone.

He nodded. "I am the worst, but luckily your standards have gotten pretty low."

"Ass." Jackie playfully shoved him off of her legs and attempted to walk away. She made it two feet before he tackled her onto the bed.

"Steven! Seriously. I can't move in the dress." She struggled to wiggle out from under him.

His pale blue eyes moved slowly over her body like molten steel. "Then take it off."

_Oh crap._

Any comeback she had died on her lips as soon as she felt the weight of his gaze on her skin. A burning desire coiled like a boa constrictor deep down in her core, filling her with want until all thoughts of anything else were incinerated by the heat.

Her breathing picked up, and she forgot where they were supposed to be going or where they'd just been. All she could think about was right now.

_It might be impossible to make up for lost time, but we do have an hour..._

"If I'm not inside of you in the next 60 seconds, I can't be held responsible for what I do." His nails scraped down the front of her dress, over both nipples and circled around to her back.

She inhaled sharply and arched her back as his fingers worked the zipper slowly down the back of her dress.

"Steven..."

He kissed her soundly to cut off any protest, and pulled at the sash on the front of her dress until it unraveled in her lap.

Her fingers dug into his hair as his mouth descended on her neck. "Oh God."

As he pulled her skirt up and slid his hand up the front of her dress, a broad smile crossed his face. "You're not wearing any underwear."

"This is a really tight dress..."

"Remind me to send your tailor a fruit basket."

_Ditto._

She unfastened the button on his trousers, and by the time she'd worked them over his hips, her was already nudging at her entrance.

"Any last words?" he asked, his warm breath leaving a trail of goosebumps down her neck.

Jackie's throat felt tight and dry. She hadn't felt this nervous to be with him since their first time. "I – I love you."

Hyde's breath hitched at her confession and he plunged deep into her, filling her entirely with one stroke. "I love you too," he whispered hoarsely as he stared at her in awe.

Her eyes squeezed shut at the sensation, and she pulled him in deeper by his hips.

"Look at me."

Her eyelids fluttered open and Hyde pressed his lips to hers again, kissing her languidly as he moved slowly within her body. Sex had always been amazing between them, but this felt different than anything they'd done before. So much better. More intense.

"Jackie...you feel so fucking wet...and tight..." He groaned in her ear as he picked up the pace of his strokes. "God, Jackie..."

Her legs were wrapped firmly around his waist and their arms threaded together his as he tilted her hips to stroke her more deeply. She had never felt this filled, been this close to a person before.

Clarity comes to people in different ways. For some, it's progressively like sedimentary rock, compounding layers of strata over a long period of time until its true shape takes place. For others, its volcanic - like igneous rock - an explosion of epiphany followed by the slow flow of acceptance and understanding.

For Jackie, it was the latter. And how.

_He's making love to me._

Though she'd used the expression often, she knew now that every time before had been a lie. Nobody had ever made love to her like this, and she had never truly let them until today.

With their foreheads pressed together, breathing each other's air, bodies slotted like a 3D jigsaw, Jackie finally felt what she had only read about in romance novels, like the ones she and Donna used to steal off of Midge's bookshelf as teens.

_You love me... _

"God..." Jackie's heels dug harder into Hyde's back as changed his angle and pulled her roughly into his pelvis. "Yes! Right there!"

He bit his lip and slammed into her harder and faster, his hand was crushed over and over between their bodies as his fingers toyed with and rubbed her in unison with his strokes. Her vision blurred and every inch of her skin heated to a simmer. Thrusting her head back against the mattress, she keened loudly into the air, cursing his name as her insides began to quiver around him. His hand pushed deeper into her wet heat, and with a sharp pinch, she fell over the edge - and after a few more erratic strokes - her followed her with a guttural moan.

"Fuck!" He emptied himself inside of her with grunt, and her hands tightened around the sides of his ass, drawing him into her further.

Jackie's laid boneless underneath him, unable to move or speak, her hands dropping dully beside them as they both struggled to catch their breaths.

"Oh...my God," Hyde said between pants, followed by an impressed laugh. "That was..."

_Astounding? Earth-shattering? The best sex I've ever had?_

"...insane?" Jackie's voice was soft and sounded foreign to her own ears.

He smiled and kissed her gently. "Yeah, insane – and a whole bunch of other things Red would probably kick my ass for saying out loud."

"For a guy who's trying so hard to keep it clean, you really know how to bang it out like a sailor on shore leave." She sighed with satisfaction and let her aching legs drop back onto the bed. "Oh shit. Caroline is going to kill me."

Jackie's dress was bunched up around her waist like a wrinkled accordion.

He rolled off of her and tried to smooth out her skirt, but the damage was done. "Yep. You're a dead man walking."

Normally, the sight of a ruined dress would be enough to put Jackie into a state of extended mourning, but she just couldn't bring herself to care. "Well, at least I went out with a bang."

Hyde groaned loudly and pressed a kiss to the side of her neck. "Leave the comedy to Richard Pryor."

_I guess he doesn't appreciate sophisticated humor._

Jackie perked up at the mention of the performer. "Ooh, does he have a show here?"

"Nope." Hyde's fingers found the bow on her dress and began to absentmindedly play with it. "But, uh, I've been thinking...maybe we should hang out here a few days? You know, when everybody leaves. Catch a few shows?"

She dropped her face into the crook of his neck and nosed his skin, inhaling the delicious musk she'd been swimming in the past day. "I wish I could, but I have work, and I still have to move all of my stuff out of the apartment before Fez and Caroline come back from their honeymoon..."

He pulled away abruptly, holding her shoulders back to get a better view of her face. "Wait. Where are you moving to?"

"That's the other thing on my list that I have to do, find housing. I think I was in denial about this wedding actually taking place." She pushed his hands away and collapsed back into the bend of his neck.

"You always have me," he offered, a tinge of uncertainty creeping into his voice.

"And I'd like to have you again." Her laughter vibrated against his pulse point in tiny bursts.

He let out an exasperated sigh. "I _meant_, you've already got a place to live. My place."

The wind left her lungs and Jackie struggled to get air. She fell onto her back and her fingers clawed the sheets beneath them.

_Oh my God. He wants me to move in with him? Do I even want to? What if I move in and then he cheats on me or decides he was wrong about us? Where will I go then?_

"What's wrong?" Hyde leaned over her and pulled her to a sitting position. "Are you okay?"

Her hands felt numb and rested limply around his neck as he lifted her stunned figure off the bed and into his lap.

"Are you dizzy? Are you okay?" His expression was pinched with concern.

She nodded and took a shaky breath.

_No. I'm not remotely okay!_

"You're lying." Hyde held her face gingerly in his palms, like it was the ripest peach at the market, careful not to press too hard. "You're not having a heart attack because I asked you to move in with me, are you?"

_He's going to turn on me any second. I know it. He always does that when he feels rejected._

Jackie shook her head and took another deep breath. "No. This is all...I came here for a wedding, Steven. Fez's wedding, not ours. I didn't think my entire world would change by the time I got back."

"Just relax," he stroked her hair softly, trying hard not to muss it anymore than he already had. "It was just an offer of a place to crash. It doesn't have to mean anything."

_He doesn't sound pissed, just a little disappointed._

"But what if I want to get an annulment? It's much easier to do it while we're here. Things will just get messier if we're living together."

Hyde's jaw tightened along with his grasp on her, before he quickly let go of both. "Who gives a fuck?"

_Here it comes, right on schedule. I knew he couldn't let something like that go._

"Excuse me?" Panic set in, as Jackie struggled to understand what his words meant.

_Wait. Is he breaking up with me? Are we even together?_

"I meant about the mess." His brows knit at her reaction. "Look, fuck the annulment. Get it, don't get it, it doesn't really matter as long as you stick around."

Jackie tilted her head to make sure he truly was as calm as he sounded. "You're serious?"

His head dropped back and he aimed a deep growl of frustration at the ceiling. "Jesus, Jackie! Yes, I'm serious. This morning was...cool, you know?"

"What was cool? The sex?"

He rubbed a hand roughly over his face a few times while muttering to himself. "No. I - yeah, that too, but that's not what I meant." His fingers ghosted the sides of her face. "I meant waking up with you. That was kinda cool."

She raised an accusatory eyebrow at him. "Kinda?"

He pressed her cheeks together with the palms of his hands. "You just love raking my ass over the coals, don't you?"

Jackie peered over the back of him and smiled. "Nope. I like your ass just the way it is."

"You _like _my ass, do you?" He shot her a saucy look that begged her to say something more. "Jackie Burkhart, you slut."

Hyde's words echoed in her ear, bringing flashbacks from his months of ridicule and bullying. She could still remember the look in his eyes the first time he called her that. Sam had been standing behind him, cackling like a hyena.

_This is why I can't trust him. This is exactly why._

"I'm having..." Her face dropped and she covered it with her hands.

"Huh?"

"I know you're not doing this, but there's still a small part of me that deep down thinks you're just lulling me into a false sense of security so you can burn me. You know, like you did when you let me think we'd gotten back together and then left me to go out with Raquel. Really though, maybe once we're together, you'll decide that I'm really annoying and – I don't know..." She was positive her ramblings were making them both feel ill.

He braced himself on the bed, looking far more pale and drawn than he had just a moment ago. "You really think I'd do that to you?"

"No." Jackie turned away from him, suddenly fascinated by a loose thread on the bedspread and twisted it around her finger. "I don't know. Maybe? No."

"I get it. Look, I fucked everything up. I know I can't make you believe me again or want to give this another shot," he grabbed her left hand from the blanket and toyed with her wedding band, "but I'm not gonna stop asking."

_Why couldn't you have said all of these things to me two years ago? I can't erase our sordid history. I did that every time I got back together with Michael, and it always ended the same way._

"I meant it when I said that I love you...but that's not enough to build a relationship on. I don't want things to be the way they were, Steven. You need to trust me, and I need to be able to trust you."

"I do trust you, Jackie. I know you won't cheat on me now." He was as earnest as a minister, and just as stoic.

Jackie relaxed in his hand, let his long fingers slide up against her smaller ones. "I don't know that though. You've cheated on me, left me twice for other women, how do I know you'll really stay this time?"

"You're 'it' for me, I swear." Hyde buried his forehead into the back of her hand. He could never look her in the eyes during their rare soul-baring moments, but he was trying. "I'll do anything, Jackie. Just...tell me I've got a shot."

_How am I supposed to say no to this? This could be the dumbest decision I've ever made, but I'll always wonder if I don't give it one last try. At least I know what it's like to be without him, so it won't come as a shock this time when it all blows up in my face._

Jackie pulled her hand back and then cupped the sides of his face. "Yes."

His eyes opened wide and flicked toward hers, and she smiled brightly at him. "Did you think I was going to say something else?"

He shrugged nonchalantly and pulled her back on his lap. "You've been pretty unpredictable lately."

They held each other in silence. She could feel his heartbeat rapidly thudding against her back.

"Maybe when we get back home, I could take you out sometime?" he whispered into her hair. "I'll even spring for somewhere nice this time."

She leaned her head back onto his shoulder and rested her cheek against his. "I don't know, I kind of like the idea of burgers and a view. Or you could always take me bowling."

"I don't hate bowling." He turned his head and dropped a kiss on the side of her mouth.

They were disrupted from their thoughts by a loud banging on the outside of their hotel room door.

"Jackie! I know you're in there, so open up!" Caroline shouted, her voice crystal clear despite the thickness of the wood.

Hyde grinned like he'd just won two tickets to see The Clash play live at the Lyceum, and promptly deposited Jackie on the mattress next to him. "This is gonna get good."

He zipped up his pants and tucked his shirt back into them.

"Jackie Burkhart!" Caroline shrieked as she continued to bang away.

Jackie scooted off the bed and pulled her dress back down over her hips, then unsuccessfully tried to smooth the creases out. "You could at least pretend to be a little concerned about the safety and welfare of your girlfriend."

_There. I said it. 'Girlfriend'. It didn't feel as weird as I thought it would._

His gaze met hers and they both dissolved into a fit of laughter.

The banging got louder. "I can hear you in there!"

Hyde threw his arm over her shoulder and kissed her temple. "I'm actually more concerned about _her_ safety right now. I know how vicious you can get when you're cornered. You're like a junkyard dog."

"Hey!" She hip checked hip - then raced past him to grab the room key from the side table before he could reach for it - and shoved it into her bra. "If you think for a second I'm letting you leave me alone with her..."

"Oh, I'm not leaving you alone with her. Fez would be pissed." Hyde placed his hand on the door handle then turned back to Jackie with a warning finger before opening it. "No biting."

She glared at him.

"And remember, blood stains don't come out of white easily." He bucked her chin with the curve of his index finger and opened the door.

* * *

**A/N - Just wanted to thank all of you who have marked this fic a favorite and put it on alert! You guys are great. I love love love hearing from you and reading all of the reviews and comments you leave. They really mean so much to me and drive my writing, so please keep 'em coming :)**

**PS - Have any of you figured out what the chapter titles are from?**


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